LogFAQs > #970951159

TL;DR: Enemy team is split up and dwarfed in power in a straight fight. Tusk's advice is not going to stop Zenos from murdering Kirby and Aigis.

So this is a pretty simple fight, really. Sagat and Tusk start all alone. Kirby and Aigis start with the enemy team, Aigis heavily damaged from taking a full power limit break from Tifa to kick things off. Seems like a pretty simple, open-and-shut case, doesn't it? The only complicating wrinkle is Tusk's advice to Selvaria. To explain why this advice was misaimed, we need to talk about Zenos.

Zenos is the former crown prince of Garlemald, an expansionistic, evil empire. A prodigy at everything he tried, he quickly grew bored with life, until an assassination attempt made him realize that there was one thing that made his blood quicken -- combat. Since then, he's constantly been on the lookout for new targets to sate his bloodlust. In battle, he's singularly focused on the task at hand, ruthlessly efficient in pursuit of his objectives. He does not question himself. He does not hesitate. And he's come to battle today looking to slaughter his opponents to the last.

Before Selvaria can even take stock of the situation, he's likely to simply hop into the air and cut Aigis and Kirby in half. Her protests will go on unheard ears. It's not the first time a subordinate's questioned his motives. Last time, his blunt response was that the meaning behind his actions was his and his alone. Selvaria, loyal as she is, is not likely to question her lord for very long. She's a soldier. Her role is not to reason why. Hers is but to do and die.

That's enough of an explanation on how ruthless a predator Kirby and Aigis are up against. The next question is: can he really get rid of them so quickly? If so, how? Well...

https://youtu.be/zGWVMh3SDbw?t=391

Something like this would be a fine start, to begin with (the following 20 seconds or so suffice). Particularly for the already wounded Aigis, it's likely Zenos will just split her in half in the first few seconds of the match. And this is not some kind of one-off feat, either:

https://youtu.be/4EOKyyokIyw?t=387

(Some ten seconds or so are enough from the timestamp)

His reach and power established, let's assume for a second that Aigis (or Kirby, if you prefer) is quickly slain. Let's say Selvaria manages to get through before he dispatches his other prey, however -- and convinces him that a fearsome warrior is waiting in the wings for him. This is not a good thing. It's going to get Zenos motivated. And what does he do when motivated? Go all out. For instance, by tapping into the power of the Goddess of Light, Hydaelyn, to transform into his alternate form: the grand wyrm, Shinryu. To first stop it, the heroes of XIV decided to sic another world-ending threat upon it, the weapon from beyond the stars, Omega. This is their clash, and if you only have time to watch one single bit of hype from this argument, make it this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecMSU6BiE8Q

The backlash of Shinryu's Protostar attack vs Omega's Delta Attack sent Omega hurtling away so hard that its crash-landing leveled a mountain, leaving a gaping hole on its side you can see even in-game in XIV if you go to the right area. Imagine what Protostar will do to these people. Shinryu also possesses major crowd control abilities (it can magically bind enemies together, forcing them to scatter or take rapidly mounting, quickly lethal damage), can suppress healing abilities (one of its many dragon breaths severely weakens healing effects upon the target), reduce enemy defenses to near zero, and simply control the battlefield at will (it can also create tornadoes to force enemies back and pin them to walls). It is an absolute titan, and any one of its attacks is liable to be game-ending. What's Tusk going to do if he's buried underwater? How exactly is he going to survive the lightning storm that'll follow, which is also likely to just obliterate Aigis outright? There's truly not a lot the enemy team can do to him. Zenos is a beast. No one here can stop him.