Escape

[When the party steps out onto the port launch, Ghis is waiting for them.]

Ghis: Such a great shame. I must confess: I thought you the one who would help us restore peace to Dalmasca. No matter. We hold the proof of your royal lineage. A maid of passing resemblance will serve our purposes now. As for you, my dear…

[Ghis summons a great magickal ball of energy which expands and levitates, crackling in the air between them.]

Ghis: The Empire requires you no more.

[Suddenly, the magickal energy is sucked out of the air, as if by a vacuum, and into the glowing magicite in Penelo’s hands. The party looks curiously at the stone.]

Penelo: What was that?

Balthier: The nethicite.

Ghis: Your Majesty does not disappoint! Ever quick to spurn an honorable surrender, as was your father.

[Ashe, furious, pauses, struggling to find a response.]

Ashe: You know nothing of my father!

[After defeating Ghis and Imperial soldiers…]

[Ghis’s helm falls to the ground, and he falls to his knees, his vision hazy. Vossler steps out onto the port launch.]

Vossler: We’ve secured an Atomos. Come!

[The party starts forward. Balthier looks dismayed.]

Balthier: An Atomos? All skiff, no ship. Hardly fitting for a leading man.

Vaan: So I can fly it then?

Fran: Are you mad?

[The scene changes to a cinematic showing the party departing in the Atomos, Fran steering the ship.]

Penelo: Can’t we go faster?

Fran: Not yet.

[A couple of small craft pass by within close range. Ashe and Penelo duck beneath the dash and emerge again after they’ve gone by.]

Ashe: They passed.

Fran: Any faster and they’d have noticed.