Part Two
Chapter Seven

Things hadn't gone according to plan at all.

Wakka, Rin, Tidus, Brother, and Gippal – who was carrying Leia – had flown down into the tunnels under Manel as planned. That much had worked out as they predicted. They had set the explosives to open the end of the tunnel, and that was when everything started going wrong.

As Gippal covered his ears to protect them from the sound of rocks exploding and crashing, he covered his daughter's body with his own, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, Rin's voice broke the silence. "Is it going to go off?"

"I don't want to look," Tidus said, still cowering.

"The moment we look up, we'll get blown to bits!" Wakka warned them all.

"I say Brother goes," suggested Brother himself. "He's lived through much worse!"

"Fine, you go," Gippal said, not particularly wanting to lose an eye – again. The memory of the first time he'd lost an eye was still vivid in his mind. "Be careful!"

"I'm always careful!" Brother insisted, and Gippal could hear him scrambling across the rocks toward the explosives.

The next thing he heard was a much less than satisfying boom!

Rocks flew, one striking Gippal in the arm and drawing blood, and dust rose into the air. His eyes stung as the dust flew at him, but he stayed in position until he was sure that everything was done moving.

When he finally got up to look at what should have been the destruction of the seal at the end of the tunnel, he saw that the explosives hadn't done anything that they were supposed to – they hadn't even damaged Brother, who was standing a relatively short distance away from them. Some of the rocks at the base of the wall had been broken away, and the floor certainly sloped down more now than it had before, but they were no closer to breaking through this spot and getting to what had been deemed as Vegnagun's power source than they were before.

"Well cred," Gippal said, not quite knowing what he was saying. The curse was almost instinctive. "What now?"

"You're the mastermind behind this," Tidus said.

"Well we certainly hadn't planned on—"

Gippal stopped. A loud rumbling had started beneath their feet, like an earthquake threatening to destroy the very ground they stood on. Wakka and Rin took to the air, even though the ceiling was low, but Gippal kept his arm around Leia.

"It's starting," she said.

"The battle." Gippal looked at the seal in the wall. "Baralai and the others have started fighting. They thought we'd be there by now."

"They probably heard the explosion," Rin said.

Running over to the wall that they should have demolished by now, Gippal pounded on the solid rock in front of him. "Break, damn you!" he shouted at it in various languages. "Come on!"

The rumbling only continued, increasing in volume and intensity. The five men watched in horror as part of the wall fell in on itself, threatening to trap them there. Suddenly, a loud crashing sound came from just on the other side of the barrier.

"Must be one of the arms," Gippal said, backing away from the wall. He narrowly avoided getting knocked out by a falling rock. "It must be hitting the wall – come on, do it again! Do we have any more explosives?"

"Here," Brother said, holding up a handful. "These didn't ignite, but I don't know—"

"Give them to me," Gippal said, snatching them out of Brother's hands. "Get back, I'm setting the timer."

Ten seconds, Gippal thought. He hooked up the remaining explosives – not enough, he knew, to do any real damage, but he hoped that they would help – and pressed the appropriate key on the ignition device.

Running back to the other men, Gippal covered his ears again. Another unsatisfactory boom, and another portion of the wall had collapsed. It wasn't enough to break through, but Gippal thought he could see the other side of the cavern through a small crack. They were almost there.

"Come on!" he shouted to the other men with him. "Hit it with rocks. Chip it away. We have to get through here!"

Just as they all had settled in to beat their way through the barrier, another resounding crash came from the other side of the wall. A rock struck Rin on the shoulder, sending him sprawling to the ground. Tidus's left wing became trapped under a pile of rubble. Gippal had gotten another arm wound protecting Leia, but tried to ignore the blood streaming down his arm.

It was time. The seal was broken just enough to allow a person to crawl through the opening. He could see the landing of a set of stairs, still somehow miraculously together. "Leia, come on, we have to go now," he said, lifting his daughter up to help her through even though his arm was threatening him with great pain.

"Will it be okay?" Leia asked, looking back down at Gippal.

"It will. We just have to do this one task for your daddy, and everything will be alright." Gippal put on a smile for her. "Come on – ready? I'm going to give you a push, and you jump down to the stairs there, okay? I'll come right through after you."

"Okay, go!"

Gippal lifted her up, and Leia went through the opening in the rock wall. After hearing her feet land on the other side, Gippal lifted himself through. His arm was hurting him more and more from the rock that had struck him from the first explosion, but he ignored it.

They were in the perfect position. Gippal could see the fireworks of spells exploding on the other side of the chamber, but Vegnagun was apparently so completely focused on the mages that it left its back wide open.

"Hold on," Gippal said. "I'm going to fly you over. Grab on tight." He put his arms around Leia, beating his wings to lift into the air. His wing took this moment to remind him that it, too, was injured, but Gippal tried to ignore that too.

Unfortunately, he couldn't ignore the tentacle of Vegnagun whipping at him full-speed. He managed to dodge it, but in the process lost his balance and tumbled through the air.

He furiously tried to right himself, but his wing was more injured than he thought. "No," he said out loud, looking up at the ceiling of the chamber spiraling around in his vision. "Not like—"

"Gotcha!"

Gippal felt himself being caught in the air, his body reeling from its sudden stop. He looked up and saw Brother holding onto his legs, and Wakka grabbing him by a wing and an arm. He looked down, and saw that somehow Leia was still holding onto his torso.

"Ready for landing," Wakka said moments before dropping Gippal and Leia onto a small ledge jutting out from behind Vegnagun. Before Gippal could thank him, he and Brother had flown away to join Rin and Tidus in continuing to distract the machine's arms.

Gippal and Leia were on their own.

The sounds of a Holy spell came from above their heads, raining down light on Vegnagun's back, and Gippal caught sight of what they were aiming for – the power source.

They all looked alike, and even the people who built Vegnagun all those years ago put blinking red lights on important things. "There!" Gippal said, pointing up so that Leia could see what they were looking for.

The little girl, however, apparently had already figured it out. She had climbed up to two platforms above them and was reaching for the cords.

Panic stabbed at Gippal's heart. His little girl was up there, and who knew what would happen if she pulled on those cords! She could get electrocuted! Immediately, he flew up next to her and took her by the wrist. "Let me," he said in the sternest voice he could muster. "I don't want you to get hurt."

Leia crossed her arms and smirked. "Then why am I even here?" she said.

"Because we thought this would be a lot harder," Gippal pointed out as he unplugged some cords from the back of Vegnagun. "We though that – hey!" He pulled on the edge of the device that directed the power. He could see the batteries – rechargeable ones, though he had no idea what the means were of recharging – and this thing he was currently pulling on was the regulator, drawing power from the batteries and dispersing it to the various locations inside the machine. "Hey, move, will you?" he told the part, yanking on it again.

He had no luck trying to pull out the power regulator. He even tried at different angles, removing parts from around it, but Vegnagun was quickly realizing that they were there, trying to get at its innards. Gippal, as quickly as he could, removed the paneling of the chassis that protected this part of the machine, peering inside. There were wires everywhere, and tubes that looked like they were breathing and expelling some sort of foul-smelling gas. He coughed and looked again.

"It's in there," he heard Leia say from below him. "I think you're too big."

"There is no way I'm letting you go in there," Gippal told her, pulling his head out of the chassis. "It's too dangerous."

"You're all going to—"

"Leia," Gippal repeated. "There is no way you are doing this. I will do it."

He wasn't going to listen to another word from her. With all the strength he could draw from his aching arm, Gippal pulled himself up into the chassis.

…and couldn't get in any further. His wings were holding him back. Those damn wings!

"Fit!" he demanded of himself, wiggling his body to try to get through. "Come on, tyshed, get through—"

"You're too bigl!" Leia repeated, pulling on Gippal's legs to get him out of Vegnagun's innards. "And it's coming after us. Mommy, you have to protect me!"

At those words, Gippal let himself fall from the opening in Vegnagun's chassis. She had called him mommy. An affectionate term. She had actually addressed him affectionately, and wasn't being sarcastic.

What was it? Had Leia actually… was she reacting to seeing her parents together in the morning for the first time in her life? Gippal felt the flood of warmth that morning when he had woken up, Baralai in his arms, and Leia at the side of the bed grinning at them.

Was this a change in Leia? And now she was in danger?

He looked over and immediately saw what Leia meant about protecting her – the front of the machine was turning around so that the arms could get a better swing at them. The appendages were getting closer and closer, and Gippal knew they didn't have enough time.

Giving one last look down at Leia, Gippal nodded. "Okay," he said, lifting her up. "Be quick." He had no idea how his daughter knew how to unhook a power source, but she seemed to know. "Leia, I love you, please come back to me."

"Daddy taught me a spell a long time ago," she said, again using an affectionate term that shocked Gippal. "And Ihlma Nooj said I needed to use it. I will."

She looked back at him one last time before scurrying through the opening. Gippal watched her go, wishing desperately that he could follow her, but knew that he had another role to fulfill.

"Come on!" he shouted, turning his head and his body to look at Vegnagun, pulling his gun from its holster. "Just try it!"

The very next thing Gippal knew, Vegnagun was trying and it was succeeding rather well in its attempt to kill him. Gippal couldn't hit the tentacle with his shots – even though the thing was as big around as his own body and several times as long -- and the vicious machine tore into his left wing with its claws. Gippal could have sworn that he heard Wakka screaming from directly above him – a few moments later, when the pain seared through his back, Gippal realized that it was his own voice that he had heard.

Still standing on the platform, Gippal could feel the horrifying sensation of his own feathers tickling his ankles. Judging from the pain he was feeling in his back, he surmised that one of his wings had been ripped off. He had absolutely no intention of actually turning around to see. He had every intention of ripping off this machine's horrible tentacle with his teeth if he had to.

It was too early for him to be out of ammunition, but he realized that much when he looked down and saw that his gun was refusing to cock anymore. He threw the useless weapon at the second tentacle bearing down on him, missed by a long shot, and took out his knives from their sheathes near his knees.

Pretty soon, he would be down to using his teeth.

First one knife was knocked away by the scaly tentacles, and then the other quickly followed it. There was nothing that Gippal could do to make a mark on the appendages – two of them now, both attacking him from either side. Really, he knew that he was just a decoy, just a shield so the little girl – his little girl – could disassemble it from inside and work her magic. He never thought that he would die as a shield, though.

The thought had never even occurred to him – not until a tentacle slammed into his right shoulder. Gippal knew better than to look, but it was too late. His vision had already focused on the metal point, clean through his shoulder, pinning him back to the wall behind him.

The sight of his own shoulder having machine coming right out of it should have sickened Gippal to the point that he collapsed. He knew this, somewhere in the back of his mind. However, the only thing that he could think about, at this moment, was Nooj.

Gippal, you're looking at me like a specimen. Tell me what you're thinking.

It's amazing. The machina comes right from your shoulder, like it's biological.

Far from it, Al Bhed. There is nothing biological about it.

But then how do you control it? How does it respond to you?

I took hold of it one afternoon and forced it to do just that. There is nothing more to it.

Forced it? How do you force it?

You wouldn't understand. You've never had it be part of you, as close as you Al Bhed claim to be to machina, you don't know what it's like for it to be part of you.

I can dream, can't I?

Gippal thought he was dreaming – and of Nooj, of all things. The machina was in his shoulder. He closed his eyes – or was it his eye? He wasn't so sure anymore – and felt it. There, he could feel it, it had pierced a tendon. In the process, some of the circuits had burst and the wires were free. Vegnagun was right there, connected to nerves, he could feel it cold and hard against his flesh.

I took hold of it, Gippal remembered Nooj saying, and forced it.

His eyes opening, Gippal looked up at the machine that was holding him captive, took hold of it, and forced it. With a shout that probably could have shaken the very foundations of the temple that stood above this site, Gippal grabbed the appendage with his usable arm and pulled it closer to himself. He dug the tentacle further into his body, forcing the nerves to respond to it.

"Machina," said Gippal to the tentacle in his hand. "Oui lyhhud pa so gemman, hud dutyo. E fyc hud sayhd du tea rana, hud dutyo" You cannot be my killer, not today. I was not meant to die here, not today. He forced his body to wrench itself free from the wall, agonizing pain searing throughout his entire torso, but he could still feel the tentacle. "E ryja tnaysat uv drec susahd, yht dutyo, ed ec rana." I have dreamed of this moment, and today, it is here.

His mind wrapped itself around the composition of the tentacle, feeling each ring of it, feeling the mechanisms underneath. A feeling that was not entirely unlike ecstasy – or was it pain? Gippal had lost the sense of this, too – ripped through his neck and shoulders as he clenched his remaining muscles in his arm.

The tentacle clenched for him.

Vegnagun seemed to scream, astonished at the surprise of being controlled from outside itself. The sound echoed in Gippal's ears as he vaguely watched the tentacle rip free of Vegnagun's control, dropping wires and cables to the chasm below. Not even certain what he was doing, or how he was accomplishing it, Gippal raised his limp, dead arm.

The tentacle raised for him.

Gippal's mind began to break. The tentacle drooped. He couldn't hold onto it, the process was tougher than he had anticipated. He was getting tired, his body sore, still pinned against the wall even though he thought he had stood up away from it.

He focused. Baralai. Leia. He had to do it for them.

He thought of all the inner workings of the tentacle, each circuit and connector and pulley, and turned his body. The tentacle slammed into the torso of Vegnagun, pinning another arm underneath it. Gippal felt the pain rake across his own torso, and imagined that this was something akin to having his ribs be shaken forcefully out of his own body.

Whether he had lost his ribs or not meant nothing. He tried to ignore the pain, the fatigue, the blurring of his vision around the edges. He felt a Holy spell decimate his body – or was it Vegnagun's body? – and he took advantage of it and contorted his torso again.

A pitiful whirring noise responded. The tentacles stopped flailing. The lights on the top of Vegnagun dimmed, then were extinguished. Cracking and crunching followed, and the machine collapsed down on itself.

Gippal thought he heard horribly out of tune organ music.

A rumble sounded, and Gippal saw Vegnagun sinking into the earth. He felt an arm on his shoulder – or was it Vegnagun's shoulder? He looked over, and it was his shoulder – his good shoulder, the one belonging to the arm that was still clutching the now-dead tentacle – and it was Baralai's arm on him.

He could barely make out the words, even though they seemed to resound in his consciousness.

Gippal! What have you done – what has it done to you? Gippal, don't close your eyes – Gippal! Wake up! Gippal!