Final Fantasy X, Remaster 9: Bevelle, Bahamut, Coeurl and Malboro.

 The guardians fought on to save Spira, heading to Bevelle aboard their newfound airship. However, the great dragon Evrae, guardian of Bevelle, stood in their way. They fought the dangerous beast aboard the deck of the airship, with Cid firing volleys of missiles to support them.

 Circling the great city of Bevelle is a dragon the guardians must fight. Their is a funny moment here, as the Al-Bhed Rin offers items to help the party fight off the dragon, that pokes fun at RPG tropes. Wakka says "We gotta pay? If we lose you die too buddy!" Rin counters with,"I have faith in your victory." I really enjoyed it, after all, it's just sort of accepted in RPGs that even though you are the heroes who will save the world, you often start with little equipment and experience, and must earn your own keep, however little sense it might make. Rin is one shrewd businessman indeed.

  While in Bevelle, Yuna receives the "grand daddy" of Final Fantasy summons, a powerful dragon that goes all the way back to Final Fantasy 1, Bahamut. Bahamut has always been represented as a dragon in FF (Bahamut is also a powerful god of dragons in the Dungeons & Dragons mythos), which is notable because of the etymology, but I'll get to that momentarily.

  Bahamut first appears in Final Fantasy I, although not in his typical role as a summon. In this game, he is the King of Dragons, and rewards the party for a particular quest by upgrading their classes. Fighter becomes Knight, Black Mage becomes Black Wizard, and so on. When the summons were introduced in Final Fantasy 3, Bahamut was the most powerful of them, and the rest is history. Although more powerful summons were introduced in later games, each one is generally specific to it's game (for example: FF8's Eden, FF9's Ark, FF10's Anima). Bahamut is the most powerful that exists across multiple games.

Bahamut imparts the class change in a FF1 remake.

Bahamut's fayth.

  The origin of the name, from The Final Fantasy Wiki: "Bahamut originated as an enormous whale in ancient pre-Islamic Arabian mythology. Upon Bahamut's back stands a bull with four thousand eyes, ears, noses, mouths, tongues and feet called Kujuta. Between each of these is a distance of a 500-year journey. On the back of Kujuta is a mountain of ruby. Atop this mountain is an angel who carries six hells, earth, and seven heavens on its shoulders. Another version of the Arabic story is that Bahamut is indeed a dragon and he stands on a whale called Liwash. In modern times, the game Dungeons & Dragons is responsible for re-imagining Bahamut as the king of dragons, a benevolent Platinum Dragon; the opposite of the malevolent Tiamat, the five-headed Chromatic Queen of Dragons."

  Now, I've seen an image depicting Bahamut and Kujuta as described above, however, my image searches just brought up pop-culture related items. So you get the artist's interpretation below.

Bahamut.

  The guardians must escape from Bevelle, after being sentenced to death for their supposed treason and murder. Oddly enough, Seymour is present for the trial of his own murderers, but such is the way of Spira, named for its spiral of death. The guardians find that Spira is crawling with the unsent, those who have died but refused to go to the Farplane. Over time the unsent lose more and more of their humanity, and become fiends. I found this a very interesting bit of background, as it gives a reason why Spira is overflowing with monsters, which is often left as an assumed status quo in RPGs.

The summoner Isaaru seeks to stop Yuna's escape from Bevelle. She calls Bahamut to aid her.

Escaping Bevelle also marks the first of many battles with creepy Seymour transformations.

  After the wild battles in Bevelle, things calm down for a moment as the guardians reach, the Calm Lands. Here on these wide open plains are a couple of monsters which harken back to past Final Fantasy games, the coeurl and the malboro.
  Both of these creatures made their first appearance in FF2, a game which while being a bit of a black sheep due to its leveling system, was the first appearance of a whole slew of monsters, characters, etc., that have become staples of the series. The coeurl is a magic cat... with tentacles. It usually has an attack called "blaster" that can be devastating, by either paralyzing or killing its target. The origin of the coeurl once again illustrates why I'm doing this, it comes from a science fiction tale I had no knowledge of. From Wikipedia:  "Coeurl is a fictional alien race of predators created by science fiction novelist A. E. van Vogt (1912-2000) and featured in his first published short story "Black Destroyer" (1939), later incorporated in the novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950). Its appearance is comparable to a large cat, except that its forelegs are twice as long as its hind legs, and it possesses tentacles attached to its shoulders which terminate in suction cups." No s...! That is a cool find. Also from the same page,  "The displacer beast in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game was inspired by the coeurl the two have the same idea of tentacles coming from the shoulders, as well as a feline appearance, and the displacer beast uses 'vibrations' to confuse its enemies." Interesting stuff.

Final Fantasy X's Coeurl.

  Next up is one of my personal favorites, although certainly not my favorite to fight in game, the dreaded malboro. These tentacled monstrosities again first appeared in FF2. Their ability to use an attack called "bad breath" that causes numerous status effects, makes their mere appearance in battle strike fear in the heart of any Final Fantasy veteran.

Run away... Run away!

   Final Fantasy Wiki has a few theories on the origin of the name: "A likely possibility is that it comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia "boro", which is the sound of an upset stomach. Their name may also be derived from the Latin and Greek words "mal" (meaning bad) and "boros" (meaning breath), a reference to their infamous attack. The name could also be a reference to Marlboro Cigarettes, since the creatures often spew horrid-smelling fumes." I say the first two theories are hogwash, and firmly believe in the third. It's a gross monster that spews "bad breath" and its name is malboro, which I think omits the "r" only to avoid a lawsuit. I mean, that's just too good to be a coincidence, right? Its a much better anti-smoking ad than American tax money has ever paid for.
  Incidentally, it's my understanding that Marlboro Cigarettes were originally marketed to women in the US, and in fact they are a popular women's cigarette in Japan. Take that Marlboro Man.

  Despite the odds being firmly against them, the guardians escaped death in Bevelle. To find out their fate, return next time for... This Bard's Tales!