Author's Note: No special notes today. It's cold!

Also, I do not own SAO or Star Wars.

Chapter Twenty-Two - The Prize Has Arrived

Kirito flew through millions of stars, and shot from the void to meet his targeted planet of Korriban on the outer rim of the Galaxy.

"We're here, Daddy. Planet ID: Korriban. Home world to the Sith, and starting planet for new Sith players sensitive with the Force."

"Glad we made it." Kirito replied sarcastically. "I wonder what kind of fire power this home base is holding."

Yui ran a secondary scan of the planet's surface. "It's home to the Sith Acadamy for new acolytes, the Valley of the Dark Lords great temples, and an extremely large garrison of Sith Empire ships that arrived back from Alderaan and Corellia."

"The fleet over Alderaan..." Kirito remembered seeing the large, imposing group of Empire ships wreaking havoc and destruction over the core world of the Republic. "...She has to be here."

"I'll run a player ID scan too, but since I've never actually ran into Mommy myself, I'm not sure it will be easy for me to..."

*BLAST*

A great power shook the small Liberator-Class starfighter, and a red alarm sounded in the small cockpit as Kirito switched on the reserves to his shields. "Yui, what the hell was that?"

"I'm not sure, Daddy. I'm scanning the area for...Daddy, a D5-Mantis Patrol Ship is following us from behind! It's a Bounty Hunter!"

"Agh great...looks like we have our work cut out for us."

Meanwhile, Lisbeth was seen giggling like a maniac as she sent several large green laser beams right for Kirito's hull. She weaved through a series of asteroids with Kirito, and tried to follow his every move to get her closer for the kill. "Asuna would probably be mad if I shot her prize out of the sky like some lousy bird, so I better get him closer to the planet's surface and let him crash over the mountains."

Kirito let his instincts take over, and passed through giant space rocks and broken ship debris as Lisbeth trailed right behind unleashing her never-ending onslaught. The green lasers zipped by his ship and onto the dreary orange rock looming in the distance, and several imposing Imperial freighter ships were docking on and off the evil home world. Kirito did not want to attract any other ships to his presence, and as a result tried to keep his flight path secured to just the asteroid fields.

"Okay, Yui. This is gonna be really dangerous but I'm going to need you on high alert while I try and navigate through the asteroids."

"Understood." Yui calmly replied. "The Mantis is approaching at a 50% speed increase from behind, and you have several larger rocks coming up on your left."

"Got it...ugh, this person has pretty good aim." Kirito had to admit it as several more shots landed on his hull, and if it were not for his shields being up, he'd be flying into the oblivion of space by now.

He had no idea a very close friend of his was on the other side of the controls for the Mantis, and continued flying for his own safety as Lisbeth stuck to him like a magnet to metal. She powered on the extra set of engines to either side of her craft, and shot two homing missiles toward Kirito in an attempt to damage his shields.

"Uh-oh, missiles incoming!" Kirito noticed his in-cockpit alarm going off, and saw two projectiles approaching from the rear.

Yui made a note of this. "Right, swerve into the larger asteroids to the left, and try to find an opening on their surface. We can fly low over the surface of the rocks to keep from getting hit out in the open."

"Agreed!" Kirito retracted the wings of his Liberator ship, and turned into the speedy V-shaped position as he barrel-rolled into oncoming asteroids like a mad man. Lisbeth tucked two of her outer engines in, and zipped by the rocks to follow him along a trench. She shot of several more warning shots to the sides of a cavern that Kirito elected to travel inside, and left the missiles alone to hit their target.

Kirito tried swaying the movement of his ship to shake the missiles, but their heat sensors were still stuck to his trail like a dog to a meal. He performed a corkscrew spin to leave the cave exit, and shouted out to his droid assistant for help.

"YUI! Shoot the back flairs, now!"

The droid obeyed, and sent off several red flares to hit the missiles, and caused a great explosion to hit between Kirito and Lisbeth's ships. The Mantis swerved around the mighty fireball, and Kirito zipped closer to the planet as his next destination was so close to his reach.

"Come on come on!" He murmured to himself with the clutch all the way forward on his control. "I need to get to the surface! I need to find Asuna!"

"DADDY! SONIC CHARGES!"

Kirito turned around to catch two blue glowing balls attach to the rear of his ship, then felt the power go out in his Liberator-Class starfighter as the bow of the craft turned for the gravitational pull of the planet. He tried regaining the controls to his ship, but felt his Liberator turning into a fiery torpedo every second in its decent. He wanted to reach Korriban's surface, but not at this pace.

"Yui, Yui! I'm downloading your file onto my comms link. We'll leave your droid form for now!" He finished taking her soul from the body of the trapped T7 unit, which made no protest as the sonic charge shut her down too. Kirito then kicked open the cockpit to his craft, then powered on an escape button that mechanically launched his chair and a parachute into the orange clouds of Korriban, and sent the Liberator Starfighter crashing into the dreary rocks below.

Kirito let his chair land on a nearby hill, then removed his straps from the chair to run for his fiery ship. He tried to find the body of the T7-UE unit, but only found it smoldering in ash and flame among the ruble of the craft.

"Glad I was able to get Yui out of her droid form. I think I can get her a new one if I return to Coruscant."

He also noticed a red glowing ping coming from the back hull. It was a tracker, probably placed there by the bounty hunter in the sky. Kirito slashed it off with his lightsaber, and broke the tracker before carrying on into the warm dusts of Korriban on foot.

The Valley of the Dark Lords was a true horror of a sight to behold. Large browning temples shaped as pyramids scraped the orange clouds of Korriban, and anti-air craft turrets dotted the ancient sites all throughout as Kirito tried to perform his own surveillance of the canyon walls.

Kirito managed to sneak over toward an open hanger tower, and noticed several Sith Warriors talking among themselves while he waited patiently behind rocks on the hill. He held his comms link to his ear to amplify their voices, and channeled the Force to hear what they had to say.

"Yea, rumor has it the attack on Tatooine isn't even bad any more. Apparently, they're still calling for more reinforcements though!"

"Well duh! That Sith Lord Trentyn is trying to get the Empire's Wrath to go to Tatooine with her garrison. Not sure why, but you know it never ends well when those two meet up."

"Trentyn? The Wrath...Asuna?" Kirito tried to decipher the trooper's language, and pulled out a small disc that now contained the soul of Yui.

"Hey Yui, run a background check on a player with the ID Trentyn. Imperial."

"Got it." The small hologram that sprung up from the disc put two hands to her temples, and closed her eyes to scour the game for information. "ID: Trentyn. Sith Warrior-Marauder Class. His real name is Trent Bishop. He's a personal friend of Luke Mathis, and employee for Immortal Gaming."

"Trent Irven. So, he's the Emperor's closest buddy...I wonder how he feels about Asuna being in charge of him."

"Tch, why the hell would you care?"

"Huh? Lis...?"

*SMASH*

Lisbeth took the butt of her rifle, and smashed the back of Kirito's head to knock the boy out. Yui screamed frantically for a moment, but Lisbeth shot the disc projecting her soul, and turned her off for good. The feisty Bounty Hunter then took Kirito by an arm and a leg, and tossed him onto the back of her speeder bike at the other side of the hill.

Asuna Yuuki sat in her office chambers with several guards, along with an impatient Argo and a very passive Sinon standing at her desk.

"I searched Dagobah, ma'am. The kid was nowhere to be found. The place was empty!" Argo sounded mad about wasting her precious starship fuel to check Dagobah for signs of Kirito, but kept her anger to a minimum around her new employer.

Asuna tapped her fingers against her desk top. "He's moved on us. I wonder if his Force abilities have improved that much. Could he be tracking us from afar?"

"We can keep several Bounty Hunters focused on finding the missing kid, but for now we need to get our next assault ready for the Core." Sinon tried to reason with her liege. "The fleet is loading up supplies and soldiers from the academy, and can even stop off at Dromund Kaas before we pick our target in the Core region of the Galaxy if you'd like."

"That sounds fine and all, but I want Kirito found. I'll abandon my goal for taking the Core in order to find the Emperor's prize."

"Don't go givin' up anything just yet, Girlie. Lisbeth's gotta special delivery!"

The three Sith leaders turned to find the office doors roll open, revealing a very smug Lisbeth saluting her overseer in the third-person.

"Lisbeth." Asuna secretly had faith in one of her closest confidants, enough to where she knew all about Sinon alerting her to the news of Dagobah. "I take it you surveyed Dagobah for me as well?"

"Eh, sort of..." Lisbeth snapped her fingers, and made way for two blacked-out guards to escort a captured Kirito into the room. His head hung low, and his hands were bound by cuffs in front of his waste.

Argo and Sinon's mouths were both agape, and Asuna's golden/brown eyes opened wider than ever as she slowly stood from her chair, and kept he full sights on the boy prisoner. Kirito stirred in his broken slumber, but finally shook himself awake as he found four very familiar faces awkwardly looking at him from his shackles.

"I found you...Asuna, it's me, Kirito."

Asuna stood still in front of her new prisoner for a short period of time, then snapped to her three assistants. "Leave us."

All three girls, and the several guards posted around the room nodded swiftly, and darted out the room to leave the husband and wife alone in the office. Lisbeth left a black box on Asuna's desk, and the Sith Lord quickly opened it to find the broken disk, a comms link, and two lightsaber hilts.

"ASUNA!" Kirito shouted at her very loudly. "Look at me! It's me, Kirito!"

Asuna's eyes had been open all the way, trying to capture everything she could just by her sight. Then the Empire's Wrath slowly turned, with her vision narrowed in a slight annoyance. She walked forward, and looked her captive dead in the eye. "The Emperor's Prize. Tell me, when did you meet with Peter Mathis?"

"I met Mathis after I logged into the game." Kirito tried to let his Jedi training calm his blood as he spoke truthfully with his beloved wife. "I spawned away from everyone else. On a planet called Mortis."

"Mortis?" Asuna sounded disgusted. "You must see me as some kind of idiot, I take it?"

"No." Kirito explained bluntly. "You're Asuna. We have faith in one another. You have no reason to think that I'm lying. We're like a tag team."

She got closer to his face, which really let Kirito study the soft mustard shade of yellow taking her eyes. The Sith girl carried on. "And what's all this nonsense about you being Asuna Yuuki's husband? I hate being called that name while inside this game, you know?"

Kirito was growing even more frustrated than she was, but did an excellent job at holding it in for the time being. "We met each other in another video game called Sword Art Online. You were, well coincidentally, second-in-command of the most powerful army in the game. I was...eh...even more coincidentally, a loner who helped other factions clear dungeons and beat bosses."

Asuna rolled her eyes. "And what, Lisbeth, Argo, Sinon? Were they there too?"

Kirito felt like he was starting to get somewhere. "Yea, yea! Well except for Sinon. I met her in a game called Gun Gale Online."

"I know it." Asuna replied. "It paved the way for this game. I've only played it once or twice."

"Interesting..." Kirito caught that as a clue. "So, you can remember games you've haven't played in-depth. What about ALO?"

"The fairy game? I have distant memories of playing it. Just names of things...it led to the Seed system too."

"Right!" Kirito stepped forward as Asuna turned away. "We're like a big family! You me, Lisbeth, Sinon. My friends Agil and Klein, Silica too!"

"Don't tell me you're referring to Jedi Master Agil?" Asuna rolled her eyes again. "I'd like to have a meeting with him before this war comes to an end...and your friends Klein and Silica? Funny you mention them. They're actually above our orbit in the Korriban Space Station right now."

"What!?" Kirito stepped back in shock. "Did you capture them!? They're your friends!"

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about." Asuna scoffed, defiant and resilient in her answer. "I'm the Empire's most powerful Sith Lord, and I play with the Dark Side faction. I have no friends in the Republic."

Kirito wanted to bite his tongue, but his anger was starting to show.

"And what about Leafa? Do you remember her?"

Asuna raised an eyebrow, and turned to see the fire in Kirito's eyes. She let out a tiny smirk, and remembered back to Alderaan. "The Jedi player Tython? As a matter of fact, I do. She was one of my toughest opponents to date. It felt more than satisfying to put my blade through her chest..."

"Gssh..." Kirito's hands were balled into fists as the metal cuffs were starting to cut circulation to his wrists. Asuna then gave Kirito her full attention, and put a hand on her curved lightsaber hilt.

"If I remember correctly you fell in tears when I killed her...was she one of my so called 'friends' as well?"

"AGH!"

Kirito charged forward, and Asuna stepped to the side and let him plow into her sturdy desk. She managed to cut the cuffs from his hands, and left him to lie next to his box of supplies.

"Take your weapons. I want to see this for myself."

Kirito grabbed the two handles from the desk, and powered on his purple blades. Fire blinded his view, and instantly he turned to hack and smash Asuna's lightsaber in an instant duel. Asuna continued to smile through the onslaught, and managed to hold off all his attacks very effectively as they both backed to the center of her chambers for the remainder of their skirmish.

Kirito spun several times to mimic his Aincrad swordskills, and tried to disarm Asuna in the fastest way possible. Asuna, meanwhile, studied every move the boy Kirito made with precision. His stance, his sways, the Force swelling inside him. She was more than intrigued with his fighting abilities, and slowly saw why Emperor Lusac valued him as a player.

They came together as Kirito crossed his swords, and Asuna stuck her blade in their center as she leaned in. "The Force is more than strong with you, Kirito. You're an impressive player."

"AGH! SNAP OUT OF IT, ASUNA!" Kirito yelled at her through their dual struggle. "You're being mind-controlled!"

"And what am I supposed to do about it!?" Asuna yelled back, sounding equally as angry. "I can't remember any of it, so why should I try now!?"

"Because...!" Kirito was being pressed back by her advancement. "Immortal Gaming is using you all for their games! You need to snap out of it and help me beat Mathis!"

"You need my help?" Asuna scoffed. "If you need me to help you beat Mathis, then I don't see why Lusac holds so much value in you as a..."

"AGH!"

Kirito separated their lightsabers, and sent out a violent shockwave of energy from his body, quite similar to the time he sent the bullets back at the Imperials on Coruscant. Asuna flew back, and performed several acrobatic flips through the air before landing swiftly on her feet. Her eyes were wide with awe as a great surge of Force power resonated from Kirito's stance.

The Black Swordsman from SAO charged forward with his two sabers in hand, and raised them above his head to strike a dealing blow to the mighty Sith Lord. Yet as he got closer, Kirito's eyes froze on Asuna's face.

For once, the face of the Empire's Wrath looked terrified for the fate of her own life.

Kirito had no desire to cause any harm to Asuna in that state, and lowered his weapons to his sides. Asuna quickly acted on the situation, and dropped her saber to the ground. She used her Force skills to tear the purple blades from Kirito's hands, then sent a power volt of electric energy through his chest, and forced him to his knees in defeat.

Both warriors were breathing heavily after the battle, and as Kirito's numbed hands grazed the floor of the office, Asuna stood while keeping her eyes locked on the dangerous prisoner, as she used her telepathy to grab a set of cuffs hanging by the door to the room.

"You really are a monster...and strong with the Force...I think you're ready to study the true nature of the Dark Side."

Lisbeth displays some bounty hunter prowess.

No Yui!

And FINALLY the two lovers reunite! Asuna senses much fear and anger in Kirito, but unlike the Jedi Leafa, she knows what to do with it...

Until next time!