BETWEEN THREE ROGUES
By Eric 'Erico' Lawson
Thirty-Five: A Divine Wind
Yafutoman Airspace
Lower Sky
200 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Morning
Aika liked to think of herself as a do-er, in that she preferred doing things rather than sitting around and talking about them. Fina was by far more sedate, and Vyse for all of his cheerful energy, could turn it on and off as the situation or his mood required. Today of all days, she was glad that she was a do-er.
Months and years from now, people in Yafutoma were going to be asking each other, where were you when the Tenkou drove out the invaders? Aika would have an answer ready and waiting.
On board the Yin Yang with Prince Daigo, Princess Moegi, Prince Enrique, and my two lovers, getting ready to kick in the teeth of every last Valuan who crossed us.
The Lower Sky was...different. All of the Yafutomans were inside of the ship, not wanting to stand outside, but Aika braved the elements. She had only ever felt the gentle warmth or the storm-chilled winds of the Central Sky, and the thin atmosphere of the Upper while they had stayed on Tenkou Island. Here was something entirely different, and unsettling. She could look up and see cloud tops which would, at any other time, be a cloud bottom. Beyond that hazy gray veil were blue, sunny skies that she caught only faint glimpses of. She breathed in the thick, moist air and stared over the side of the vessel, looking down into even thicker clouds and a constant darkness that loomed and beckoned. It made her shiver, even though the air here was warmer than anywhere else but the Nasrian desert. Warmer and wetter. Like Ixa'taka really, but...with so much more darkness.
She stared down into the Abyss for a few more seconds, finally seeing for herself that there was truth to the old curses and oaths people used when they so blandly told people to go to the abyss. Aika found herself thinking about all the ships over the hundreds of years of skyfaring that had been lost to the depths.
She shuddered and took one step back from the rail, then another and then five more, and forced her eyes skyward. And then yelped and jumped a little when she felt arms wrap around her.
Vyse's arms. Once she realized that, she calmed down and sank against him.
"You're all right." Vyse told her gently. "It's okay. You're all right."
She exhaled in jittery bursts, and didn't resist when Vyse started to kneel, guiding her to sit down on the deck. Her knees felt like jelly. She should have felt embarrassed, a seasoned sailor like herself going weak-kneed. "I think I get why the Yafutomans don't like to fly down here." Aika said softly.
"You looked down for too long, didn't you?" Vyse asked her knowingly. Aika shrugged, leaning back against him when he uncurled his legs and brought them around her hips. "Daigo told us not to do that."
"Yeah. I got curious." He huffed a bit and pulled her back, leaning her head against his shoulder so he could lean his head on top of hers. "Where's Fina?"
"What, suddenly I'm not good enough for you by myself?" He teased her, and she rolled her eyes. She knew what he sounded like when his feelings were actually hurt. "She's right here. But I saw you swooning, and…"
"You do love being the hero." She smiled, feeling his arms wrap around her belly and sighing in satisfaction.
"I love being your hero." He chuckled, and Fina came into view, kneeling beside them. "And Fina's. But she likes being your hero too. Right, love?"
The blonde-haired Silvite brushed her veil and her hair back as she smiled at Aika, leaning in and giving Aika a long, soft kiss that made her eyes flutter shut. "You okay, baby?" Fina asked after, a gentle voice in the lower, slower, deeper sounding wind than normal that was present in the Lower Sky.
Moons, she loved these two. "I'll be better once we're out of these clouds and back on our own ship." She confessed to them.
"Today." Vyse promised her. She reached up with one hand to run it through his messy hair, and bumped into the captain's hat that he'd taken during their escape from Yafutoma. "A couple of hours. Word's filtered back from the scout ship that Daigo had sent on ahead. We got the flag signal from the ships flying above us five minutes ago."
Aika closed her eyes, thinking about their friends and the crew who were, so far as they knew, still being kept prisoner belowdecks on the Delphinus. Not executed or transferred elsewhere. Likely so they could be interrogated.
"There's a lot that can still go wrong with this plan." Aika reasoned.
"Things usually can go wrong. But we've prepared ourselves the best that we can." Fina replied, confident and her blue eyes sparkling with purpose. "Just because the odds are against us, it doesn't mean we stop. You two showed me that. You taught me that."
"Whatever happens, Aika, we're with you, and we love you, and I wouldn't change a damn thing." Vyse said, a fire in his voice right before he shifted her head off of him and turned her around slightly so that he could pull her into a heated kiss, his tongue running over her teeth and teasing her own. Aika loved his kisses, he could be hard and possessive in a way that Fina never was. With her mouth, anyways.
When he pulled back, Aika felt even warmer than before and was panting for air. And that was before Fina pressed in and hugged her, smashing their chests together and licking at her ear while her hands traced the curve of her back, and Vyse's hand met Fina's just above the curve of her ass. Aika whimpered, and cursed the fact that they had been driven off of their ship, away from their home and all the things that they'd kept there.
"The first thing I want after this is done is my coffee." Fina growled. "And the second is my fucking birth control pills."
Aika laughed at the frankness in her lover's words, and Fina pulled back and smiled, having succeeded in the goal of getting Aika's mind off of where they were and what might happen.
"Baby?" Aika said to Fina, the fire in her belly spreading out through her body with the promise of violence and sex too intertwined for her to tell the difference. "We're going to kick Valua's teeth in today. You know that, right?" Fina's gleaming gaze answered her better than her words ever could. Aika felt Vyse go still around her, and it was enough to make her blink enough that Fina realized something was wrong. Aika tightened her hand in Vyse's hair while Fina looked at him.
"Vyse?"
"I'm okay."
"If you were okay, Vyse, you would be feeling me up right now instead of acting like a statue." Aika grumbled. It got a shallow laugh out of him and a smile from Fina, but Aika pressed on. "What's bothering you? No secrets, remember? I can't fix what you don't tell me about."
"I know." Vyse sighed. "I know. You try to fix everything. You've always been good at fixing things. Even us." He kissed the top of her head and pulled her tighter against him. "I'm scared." Aika looked to Fina again, and the Silvite looked as shocked as Aika felt. It all poured out of Vyse after that. "I know I'm the captain, and I'm supposed to look like nothing ever bothers me. We have a good plan, we're relying on my favorite tactic of refuge in audacity. But I'm still scared. I'm scared that we'll lose. I'm scared that our friends are already dead. I'm scared that you two will die and leave me alone, or that I'll die and leave you alone without me."
"It's not going to happen." Fina promised him, and she reached for his hand that was pressed on Aika's stomach. Aika let go of Vyse's head and joined her hand with theirs, and closed her eyes.
"It could, though."
"If you keep thinking about it, you're going to end up making it happen." Fina told him sharply. "Neither of you are dying. I won't allow it. I'd drag your souls out of the abyss before your bodies ever got cold." That got a longer and more relieved laugh out of Vyse, though he still didn't seem entirely convinced.
"And if you died, Fina?" Vyse asked her.
She responded by conjuring up Cupil from his armband form, and made a slight gesture. The creature coughed out a small spell crystal that gleamed with brilliant silver light. She took it and set it in his hand.
"Is that…" Aika whispered reverently.
"A Riselem Crystal." Fina confirmed. "I made it before we got into Yafutoma." Her blue eyes were a little watery when she leaned in to kiss Aika again, swift and fierce, and then she gave Vyse one that lasted several seconds longer with her hands pressed against the sides of his head. When they separated, flushed and gasping, Fina bent her head down and laid her cheek on Aika's head.
"If I die? You use that. You bring me back." The Silvite forced out, her voice shaky. "I'll run back to your arms." Their arms, not just Vyse's, Aika realized.
"I love you two." Vyse blurted out. "I don't tell you that enough. Moons knows I should. It's everything. It's how you both look at me, at each other. It's how we kiss, how we hold each other at night. How we work, how I know I can follow your lead and trust you as much as you trust me. I love you for who you make me, and for the life I get to live with both of you in my arms."
Aika was a do-er, not a thinker. She stood up long enough to turn herself around and kneel on her legs Yafutoman style before nestling her head under his chin again and pulling in Fina to her side so his arms could wrap around the both of them. She knew how she made him feel, because she felt the same every time he looked at her when nobody else was watching, when Fina let the demure and rehearsed formal mien slip away to reveal the brilliant, beautiful woman she was underneath it shine through.
"No matter what happens, we're together." Fina resolved, slipping her hand into Aika's and interlacing their fingers. Fina squeezed her hand until their grip was tight, until it said everything that her words didn't. I love you so much.
Aika breathed and squeezed her hand back. "Always." There aren't the words for how you make me feel.
Midday
Vyse had a plan. No, really. He did. It was a terrific plan. Some captains that fancied themselves tacticians would try to account for every variable and make up some kind of a twelve-step approach that would fall apart at the first hiccup. Vyse, on the other hand, had been raised on the stories of his father's exploits, not knowing that the adventures of Dyne the Blue Storm were not something to be followed verbatim, but were meant to be a guide of what not to do. Aika had laughed herself nearly sick when they'd gone home after the second time that they had blown out of the Grand Fortress and Dyne had confessed that at least half of the grand stunts he'd pulled in his early days before the crew of the Albatross had found their rhythm were done by the seat of their pants. Vyse had heard the stories and admired them, but he had trained under his father in a time when Dyne had put the kind of insanity behind him that should have normally gotten everyone killed. When Aika and Vyse had been allowed to join up with the rest of the crew as aspiring Blue Rogues in training, Dyne had rules and standards that he meticulously followed, ones geared towards minimizing risk and keeping clear of mayhem. He pounded that into Vyse's head hard, impressing on his son the responsibilities of being a leader, of staying calm and collected, and about coming up with sensible plans and tactics. Which Vyse did.
Well. Aside from that time that he had Aika chuck out that Pyri spell crystal from the train when they rescued Fina so Drachma knew where to aim the cannons, or the time that he refused to use the Moonstone Cannon when facing down the 2nd Fleet and then turned around and faked an engine malfunction so they could fire every last loaded shell and torpedo, or the time that…
On second thought, Aika took it back. Vyse clearly hadn't taken his father's lessons all that much to heart after all. His favorite stunt, after all, was refuge in audacity, which was a more polite way of saying 'I've got an idea that's so crazy that it HAS to work!' Sure, he knew when to tone it down and when to get serious, but damn if the man she loved still had a streak of outright chaos in him that refused to die. Still. Times like this, the conservative approach wasn't that useful at all. The odds of this plan working were still low, but they weren't entirely geared towards suicide.
Vyse's plan was simplicity. The heavier ships of the Tenkou, minus Daigo's flagship that they were currently on, would fly with the ships of the Yafutoman Navy that had refused to kowtow to Minister Kurowei's foreigner-supported coup. The smaller ships were stationed up higher, and would be unloading their torpedoes and spell-laced cannonballs from above, and out of range of the Valuan's main guns. It was all a feint, in the beginning at least. The Tenkou knew that they couldn't take the Valuans in a standard ship to ship slugfest. No, the plan was to make Valua think that they were trying to do that, to set them at ease and to make them relax, while dealing with attacks from higher altitudes so that they would feel secure in thinking that they'd accounted for the tricks their enemies were using. Secure enough to loosen their cordon.
Secure enough to let the Delphinus come out to play.
The sounds of battle were fierce as the Yin Yang drifted just within the clouds separating the Central Sky from the Lower. A lookout perched high in the rigging was just above the layer, which would have been an unusual feeling for the man, knowing that his ship was below him but feeling like he was flying freely.
The lookout shouted as another two shells were fired from the battle above. He rattled off a litany of words in Yafutoman, and Aika looked to Moegi and Fina, who stood side by side on the deck frozen and listening. The backs of their hands brushed up against each other unconsciously, a sign of just how nervous they were. Moegi had never been in a battle, and for Fina, this would be her first boarding action. The two regal women both had reason to be on edge.
"Your ship has been sighted." Moegi said, glancing to Vyse. "But the Tenkou on the frontlines are taking heavy damage." Daigo stepped out of the wheelhouse on the other part of the double-hulled vessel and shouted out what was undoubtedly an order, and a roar answered him back.
"We sail to war." Fina translated softly. "Daigo has us turning to line us up beside the Delphinus. Once we pull up beside her, our time to board her will be limited."
"I've done more with less." Vyse said, and Aika almost rolled her eyes. Yes, he had. It didn't mean he should.
The Yin Yang broke through the clouds at last as it ascended, and everyone quickly hooked their carabiners to the mounts dotted along the rails. Given the steepness of the ship's ascent, it was all too necessary, for Moegi let out a yelp as her feet gave way underneath her. She slipped back as the line snapped taut and brought her into Enrique's arms, and he quickly held her around the waist with one while gripping his own line tighter as he dug his boots into the deck.
"Easy. I've got you." Enrique reassured the princess of Yafutoma, whose red face Aika suspected wasn't entirely due to her close call. "Not quite the steady ascent most ships usually take!" He shouted at Vyse after.
Aika's captain and lover laughed loudly, his black hat somehow stubbornly staying on through everything. "Now I know why everything down in the hold was strapped down to the walls along with the floors!" He whooped, leaning forward almost to the point of laying down on the sloped deck but still as steady on his feet as Aika was. "Okay, everyone! Remember the plan?"
Or the lack of one. Vyse's plan was simple and allowed for changes or screwups. Aika and Enrique would head belowdecks once they were aboard to liberate their imprisoned crew, while Vyse and Fina would make for the bridge to secure the helm. There had been one slight modification to the plan that Daigo had insisted on. Moegi was coming with them, because it was safer for her to be aboard the Delphinus than on the Yin Yang. Vyse got a handful of sharp head nods from them all, and Enrique followed it up by calling out his name.
"Vyse." The Blue Rogue looked to the exiled prince, noting the grim look on his face. "You will protect Moegi with your life." Moegi made a little noise and looked at Enrique in wonder.
"I already promised Daigo she would be safe." Vyse told him.
"This vow you make to me. Not him." Enrique clarified. Aika stared at the blond-haired prince as he tightened his beret on his head, and then cracked a grin.
"Relax, 'Rique. My best girl's going with Vyse too. Your girlfriend's gonna be just fine."
Enrique blushed at the assertion while Moegi blinked in confusion, stumbling over the unfamiliar term. Vyse chuckled once, then let solemnity slip back onto his face.
"On my honor as a Blue Rogue, Enrique. I will protect Princess Moegi Tokugawa with my life." Fina cleared her throat loudly, and Vyse let his face slip back into a grin as he looked to the Silvite. "Well. We will."
"Thank you." Enrique replied, coughing once, and then the Delphinus came into view, commanding their attention. It had been firing only sporadically, whatever crew they had aboard her was unfamiliar with its fire control and the loading mechanisms. A point in the favor of the Tenkou and the Blue Rogues, because the Delphinus was the most dangerous ship on the battlefield. And it had taken some hits already. Aika hissed as she saw the damage of cratered armor plating and scorched metal, and wondered for a moment why the ship hadn't been firing the Moonstone Cannon. If the Valuans or Muraji, supposedly stationed up on the bridge had been wanting to make a statement, there would have been no quicker way to do it.
The Yin Yang tore up alongside the still clueless Delphinus and pulled into a matching flight pattern.
"Everyone off that's getting off!" Vyse bellowed, and they all unclipped their carabiners from the rail. Vyse pulled Fina up beside him with one arm as the ship went rail to rail, and before the Silvite could do more than squeak in surprise, he swept her up in a bridal carry. "You ready for this, Fina?"
Blushing but giddy and caught up in the moment, Fina raised her arms and threw them over his shoulders. "Always, beloved." She kissed him, then looked over to Aika and bit her lip. "For good luck?"
Well. Who could say no to that face? Aika sauntered up to Vyse and Fina, then gave Fina a quick peck that warmed her heart before she pulled back. "Let's save the world, babe." Fina giggled, and there was a moment where Aika thought she heard Moegi make a squeaking noise. When she looked over to the Yafutoman royal, the dark-haired dearling's eyes were wide and she was looking away and blushing. Guess she wasn't used to seeing girls kissing each other. Enrique just rolled his eyes, not quite immune to the way that they fawned over each other but accepting of it and steadily growing accustomed to it.
"You'll be careful, won't you?" Vyse asked Aika.
"As careful as you are, love." Aika replied.
"That is hardly encouraging." Vyse muttered, and then with a lunge, two steps and a leap, he crossed the gap from the Yin Yang to the Delphinus with Fina barely jostled at all. Enrique hesitated, and Aika snorted and smacked him on the back, forcing him forward into an awkward jump that he hadn't had the time to prepare for, and which forced him into a faceplant onto the deck of their hijacked ship. As he groaned and picked himself up, Aika covered her mouth for a moment, then she took Moegi's hand.
"You are all crazy." Moegi observed in a faint voice.
"Yup. Blue Rogues." Aika flashed her a grin and made the jump from rail to rail, tugging Moegi behind her. They hit the deck of the Delphinus and Aika took in a breath, starting to feel like things were turning back to normal at last. Even when a trio of Yafutoman soldiers came charging out through the hatch that connected the deck to the ship's interior. They yelled something in Yafutoman which had to be some variant of 'surrender now you pirate dogs!' that the Valuans always loved to throw out at them when they got talkative. Aika ignored their words and paid attention to the points of their spears as they fell short of the team and kept them brandished and pointed at them. Moegi took a step forward and enunciated clear words back at them, probably an order to stand down. The trio looked nervously at each other with their woven plate armor jostling under them, then their faces hardened.
"Aika?" Moegi said, less a question than a command. Aika stepped forward and let her aura flare to life, burning with power.
"Everyone else, stay back." She called out, and raced at the trio. They reacted in surprise, not expecting to have a single warrior try to take on all three of them. And had Aika been meaning to duel them with her boomerang it would have been suicidal. But she had other plans, an opportunity to try out a new move that she'd been skating on the edges of for weeks.
Lambda Burst.
She hit the center of their formation and unleashed her power, and it exploded out from her in an enormous blast wave of heat and concussive force that knocked them off their feet, burned them alive, and sent them flying. One even flew clean off the side of the ship.
"Woah." Vyse said, and Aika sent him a wink.
"Nice of them to leave the door wide open for us. Get to the bridge. Enrique? You're with me."
They took off like lightning, and with Enrique quickly closing the distance, Aika made for the stairs that would take them belowdecks. They had a crew to save and a ship to take back.
There were Valuans and Yafutomans on board, but a boarding action was not something that any of them had thought to be a possibility. The force guarding the prisoners were armored up, but were at reduced numbers. With the hold locked up and sealed off during the engagement, they hadn't needed more than half a dozen men, a mixed force of Kangan loyalists and Valuan grunts. Between Aika's rampaging firepower and Enrique's swift swordplay, they dispatched the guard force with only a little less ease than they had the few guards posted in the corridors. Which is to say they actually had to fight them instead of blowing right through them.
Enrique yanked the door's handle hard and tugged the hatch away from the hold's bulkhead, and when Aika looked inside, she yelped and had to jump out of the way when a loose board came flying for her face. "DAMN!" She cried out, when the board hit her between the shoulders instead, and before the blinding pain set in, she saw that it had been Khazim who'd wielded it.
The board hit the floor with a clatter and the Nasrian gunner let out a foul curse while the other members of the crew that had been imprisoned inside the hold let out gasps and cries and raced to her side.
"Shit, that hurts." Aika grunted as strong hands and strong arms pulled her up. A set of warmer hands fell on her next, setting on her shoulder and her back before the warmth of a healing spell flowed into her.
"If you can wiggle your fingers and toes, then you're fine, dear." Dr. Argas told her patiently. Aika shook the stars out of her eyes and shoved herself up to her feet, then flipped Khazim a middle finger.
"It's a good thing you didn't take my head off with that swing, big guy." Aika said, and Khazim laughed nervously, stepping back and holding up his hands. Aika kept the glare on him for another second, then smirked and punched him in the chest. "Too bad I wasn't Valuan, right?" Nervous chuckles answered her, and she looked over them all. Tired. A little hungry and skinnier, but not mistreated. Not beaten or tortured. And some of them were missing. "Okay, where's Robinson and Polly?"
"Up in the galley, boss." Lapen answered, pushing past the others and smiling at her. He raised his fist up, and Aika smashed her forearm against his. "They figured if Polly was doing the cooking, we might eat it. Damn, it's good to see you. This is a jailbreak then?"
"A jailbreak with a side of taking the ship back and turning the tide of this battle." Enrique answered. "We found some help, but without us they're getting the shit kicked out of them. Right now, the son of the corrupt Yafutoman minister who sold out his country to the Armada is up on the bridge, and Vyse and Fina and the princess of these lands are going to retake control. But that's not going to do us any good if we all don't take back this ship completely and man our stations for combat. Now all of you answer me, and don't lie; are you in a fit state to retake the Delphinus?"
"AYE!" A roar answered him from everyone, even little Marco. Aika barked out orders for Khazim and the gunners and her ship's engineers to follow her, and everyone else went with Enrique as the two squads diverged. The weapons of the dead and dying Valuans and traitorous Yafutomans were scooped up and repurposed, and with the crew running flat out on adrenaline, they made for their objectives. Most of them, anyways.
"Lawrence!" Lapen shouted, stopping the sailor dressed in purple who was bringing up the rear while brandishing a stolen Valuan cutlass. The brown-haired mercenary helmsman and fighter looked back over his shoulder to Lapen, who grimaced and ran a hand through his wild blond hair. "Don't go fuckin' dying, you hear me? You take this ship back and you help the Cap'n outfly all these Valuan sonsabitches!"
Lawrence was known among the crew for his cold looks and his aloof attitude, even if he had finally conceded the bet and surrendered the other half of his ridiculous contract fee to Vyse after the Southern Ocean crossing. But when he looked back to Lapen, for a moment Aika could have sworn that the man actually smiled. "It's what I'm paid for." He said, and then he was jogging off after Enrique and the others.
"Huh." Hans hummed, looking at his foster brother before waggling his eyebrows. "So what was that all about?"
"Ah, shut up." Lapen snorted, giving his younger sibling a rough shove before he looked to Aika. "We going or not, boss?"
"We're going." Aika said, gripping the handle on her boomerang a little tighter. She led her squad forward through the belly of the ship. They had to secure the heart of the beast and all of its weapons.
There were no Yafutomans in engineering, just a half crew of very competent Valuan engineers who took one look at the murder squad heading their way and quickly threw their hands up in surrender after their officer scrambled to fire off his single shot pistol and got gutted for it. They got to work tying up the smart ones, one of whom nervously asked what sort of quarter they could expect to be given.
"That's up to the Yafutomans." Aika told the man, who sputtered and went pale. "Or their prince, anyways. He's the one risking his neck to save his kingdom."
"A prince? Since when did Yafutoma have a prince?!" Another engineer exclaimed. "I thought there was just the princess!"
"Gee, Valua was working off of faulty intelligence. How about that?" Lapen snarked. He finished hog-tying the hands and feet of the last Valuan left alive and stepped back. "All right, boss, we're secure here."
"Good." Aika turned to Khazim. "Get to fire control, mop up the stragglers and get ready to make Valua hurt a little more."
The bare and barrel-chested dark-skinned Nasrian laughed loudly and hoisted his cutlass. "As you command, Daughter of the Red Moon! Come, men! There's blood to be spilled!"
Hans groaned as the Nasrian gunners took off running, looking between Aika and Lapen. "Uh, Miss Aika? Brother? Are they always that melodramatic?"
"Only when it counts." Aika smirked.
"Even if you retake this ship, you'll never defeat the Armada!" One engineer who apparently hadn't recovered all of his common sense cried out. "The main gun on this ship isn't operational!"
"Wait, what?" Aika whirled about, quickly working her way up to a full-blown panic. No Moonstone Cannon? They'd be cut to ribbons without it!
"Ah, yeah." Lapen scratched at the back of his head. "About that." He looked over to Hans and the more elderly engineers who'd joined up from Esperanza. "Hans! Get our boys on the reactor readouts and make sure that the driveshafts are lubricated. I'll be back in a few minutes to help, but I've got something to take care of first!"
"On it, big brother!" Hans gave Lapen a salute with his oversized wrench and then rushed to get to work, then Lapen motioned to Aika and they started running forward through the bowels of the ship, doing their best to ignore the wailing alarms that hadn't yet been silenced.
"Okay, so what did you mean - when you said 'about that' Lapen?" Aika huffed, timing herself between puffs of breath as they stayed in a near flat-out run.
"When the Valuans - came aboard, they - swarmed us before we - could react." Lapen responded, not quite as physically fit as Aika. "I was down - working here. You had those - modifications."
"Fina's, right." Aika quickly agreed. "The refinements - to the focusing array. And the - other fixes."
"So when the Valuans - rushed in, I - disabled the cannon. And lied." Lapen finished with a cackle. "Got that bitch admiral - thinking that Fina was - the only one who - could make it operational again."
They were forced to stop at a closed hatch that separated the forward compartment of the lower bow to the massive engineering spaces along the mid and rear sections of the ship. Lapen quickly worked the lever lock and pulled it open, and Aika stepped past the bulkhead to look at the massive assembly rigged up on a gyroscopically balanced mount, all too necessary for the precision mechanisms that had to work perfectly with minimal vibrations in flight and combat situations. Fina had very little good to say about the engineering and the 'limited principles of particle physics' that went into the Moonstone Cannon's creation, but she'd wholeheartedly approved of the setup that kept the gun stabilized and dampened the vibrations around it.
"So. I got Admiral Belleza to believe that Fina'd taken it offline for maintenance, and that none of us knew how to put it back to rights."
"Half a lie, then."
"The best lies have a drop of truth in 'em, boss." Lapen said. He walked past her and went up to the massive power converter that ran from the ship's enormous moonstone reservoir to the cannon's capacitors and threw open the covering. "Main power still offline?" He asked, pausing before diving further into the guts of the weapon.
Aika went over to the box and checked the relays, quickly flipping a single toggle to the OFF position which had escaped the notice of the Valuans before. "Now it is."
"Good." Lapen grinned, reaching inside and squirming his arm around past bundles of wires and pipes and moonstone latticework. "Safety first and all." He adjusted something, grunted once in approval, and then pulled his hand back out. "There. Now flip it all back on." He said, putting the cover back into place. Aika did so with gusto, and they were rewarded by the sound of the Moonstone Cannon coming back to life after days of being offline.
Lapen grinned madly. "They caught me pulling some wires elsewhere, but they all missed this. Days the Valuans spent digging around the Moonstone Cannon trying to figure out what Fina had done to knock it offline for her 'improvements.' Not a one of them ever bothered to check the tertiary emergency recessed breaker inside the power converter."
Aika busted out laughing. Of course they wouldn't, it hadn't been a part of the original construction. It had been something that Fina had insisted on them installing, one last interrupt between the focusing array and the moonstone reservoir that would shut the cannon down in the event of a catastrophic overload. One additional safety measure for an unforeseen danger that Valua hadn't thought of, but which Fina had known about and anticipated.
"It only took me five seconds to screw them over and keep 'em from using our best weapon against anyone." Lapen concluded. "And five seconds to put it back."
"You magnificent bastard." Aika praised him with a sigh. Lapen shrugged and rubbed the back of his head.
"Yeah. Okay, boss. I've got to get back to Hans and make sure that he's got our teams working properly. You, though? I think you're needed on the bridge. The cannon should finish its warmup cycle by the time you get there."
"Right. Carry on then." Aika winked at the man and left.
The Delphinus was back in business.
Bridge
The Yafutoman guards and their Valuan 'advisors' were all corpses being hauled off of the bridge by the crew when Aika finished backtracking her way through the ship to it. Moegi seemed a little pale from the ordeal, but kept her eyes fixed on the simpering form of Muraji Kurowei, who was bleeding from a thin cut on his forehead as he lay on his side, his arms and legs tied together behind his back. Vyse and Enrique and Fina were running from station to station while Lawrence stood at the helm, holding the wheel steady. Vyse caught sight of her and gave her a short nod.
"Give me some good news, Aika."
"Engineering and the Moonstone Cannon are secured. Khazim was headed for his post when we split up. And everyone else should be on a path of destruction…"
The hatch leading into the bridge swung open again, and Marco came racing inside, his hair matted in sweat. "Tikatika and the others just got done sweeping the residential and communal areas of the ship, captain. They sent me to tell you they've got it all fumigated!"
Vyse visibly relaxed, relieved at the news. "Well. Better than expected. They really weren't expecting a boarding action. Good job, Sailor Marco. Go find Pinta and Pow and get ready for damage control."
"Aye, sir!" The boy went running off, and soon after Domingo and Don joined them on the bridge, filling up the missing slots. Don took one look out at the battlefield through the bridge windows and winced.
"This has been a hell of a rescue, but I get the feeling that we're not out of this mess yet."
"You'd be right. Stations, people." Vyse ordered, returning to the captain's chair and cuing up the ship's intercom. "All hands, this is the captain. Aika tells me that the breakout went off flawlessly and Marco just said you finished mopping up the rest of our Valuan infestation. I need everyone at their stations and ready for a tough fight. The Armada's still parked in Yafutoman airspace, and the help we found to get us here and give us a fighting chance is getting the tar beat out of it. If you're listening in, sound off and give me your status!"
"Engineering here, captain. The Moonstone Reactors are running fine and the turbines are getting solid RPMs. They kept the driveshafts greased while we were stuck in the hold." Lapen called back over the squawk.
"Weapons control, Captain Vyse!" Khazim bellowed, as loud and unrestrained as ever. "All cannons are operational, but one of the torpedo launchers was knocked out of commission. You'll have to make do with five!"
Aika watched Vyse shake his head from the disappointment of it, and then brush it off. "The ship took some hits before we regained control of it. Anything we need to worry about?"
"Response team 1, captain." The voice of the ship's surgeon Ilchymis cut in over the line. "No injuries to the crew I've been apprised of, and nobody's reported any fires. Pinta's lining up the fire extinguishers, though."
Fina hummed from her own station, her hands set on the two pillars that were used to charge the ship's moonstone reservoir with spiritual energy. "No damage to the reinforcement systems, Vyse. And the Moonstone Cannon's just finished coming back online."
"Good. We're going to be needing it soon, I think." Vyse was staring out through the glass and towards the ships of the Valuan Armada. Two were turning towards the Delphinus to get into attack position. "I think they just figured out that the Delphinus isn't flying for them anymore." He punched the squawk next to his seat. "General quarters! Prepare for ship to ship combat!"
The Delphinus was attacked by two Valuan frigates. It had taken several hits, pieces of its upper and side armor plating were blasted and warped, it was down a torpedo launcher, and its crew was weakened from captivity.
The two frigates hadn't stood a chance, and they hadn't even had to use the Moonstone Cannon. Vyse had quickly decided against employing it outright; he wanted the Valuans fighting under the false assumption that they outgunned the Delphinus as long as possible. So when the ships closed in, firing their cannons, Aika and Fina paired up on the moonstone feeder lines and clasped their hands to close the circuit, then sent spells of Increm and Quika into the ship's workings. They dodged most of the shells fired at them thanks to Domingo's sharp eyes at the trajectories of the cannons aimed at them and the burst of speed that sang through the four propellor shafts, and the few that managed to land on target had their force blunted by the red glow of magic that surrounded the damaged hull. Then with the order given to open fire, Khazim pounded the Valuans mercilessly. Vengeance was never so sweet as when it came from a Nasrian gunnery crew unleashing hell on a ship infused with the ferocity of the Red Moon's magic.
The first frigate had holes pounded into it from the force of two torpedoes burrowing in through the top and four shells smashing into its bow and amidships. The smoke and the fire that poured out of it as it retreated was all too evident. The second frigate took it even worse as the Delphinus swerved to take aim with its starboard turret and the rear one along its centerline. The warshots they unleashed that time didn't hit the armored hull of the frigate, but instead smashed into the less reinforced citadel at the rear of the ship. The command deck and the living quarters were torn apart by the hits, and the critically damaged ship tipped nose-down and sank for the abyss, burning as it went.
It was brutal and horrific, but it was war, and nobody on the bridge said a word against it. Aika had been fighting against Valua for too long to be squeamish about it now. The Blue Rogues had always been the underdog in their engagements with the Armada, taking worse than they gave when they tried to fight the Valuans on their terms. Now that they had the means to take them head-on and win, it didn't mean they fought any less ferociously. Except for that time Enrique had cajoled them to fight Gregorio by his code of honor, and even then they'd been flying a flag signal offering the admiral and his fleet the chance to surrender and withdraw safely at any time.
There would be no flags offered here. Valua had invaded another kingdom, just like they had with Ixa'taka. The admirals here were Belleza and Vigoro, and Aika wanted them to burn. Vigoro for what he'd done to her, and Belleza for what she'd tried to do. Vyse had confessed to the both of them on the third night of their voyage back from Daccat's Isle what Belleza had said and offered to him, and while she and Fina had both hugged him breathless for refusing Belleza's advances, Aika hadn't forgotten about it. No, there was only one other woman she would ever share Vyse with, and that Valuan tart who gave red-haired women a bad name was not Fina. Not by a longshot.
After that first brutal exchange that resulted in the Armada losing a tenth of their overall strength, the rest of the Valuan force quickly took notice. Most cleared away from the Delphinus, not wanting to tangle with the clearly superior firepower and defenses at its disposal. One ship didn't, though. It was twice as large as a frigate, perhaps two-thirds the size of the Delphinus, and was painted solid blue along the underside of its hull. It was bristling with guns, but the most prominent feature it bore was one massive gun that looked like it had been ripped straight out of the Grand Fortress cannon wall.
"The Draco." Enrique said, after Tikatika had yelled down from his station on the lookout's nest to warn them of the approaching danger. Vyse stepped down from the captain's chair and joined him at the window while Aika and Fina stayed at the feeder lines. Aika wasn't breathing hard yet, but the strain of defending against so many shots had definitely gotten her heart rate up. "And aboard her, undoubtedly, will be that fecund wastrel Vigoro." The prince's blue eyes flashed with yellow light from his magic, a sign of just how angry he was. "You all remember what I told you of his ship?"
"Yeah." Aika muttered, glaring at the enormous gun mounted on the bow. How that didn't cause the entire ship to become unbalanced was something that she didn't quite comprehend. "Talk about trying to compensate." There were a few snorts of laughter from the other members of the crew, but Vyse and Fina and Enrique looked at her in horror, because they knew it wasn't entirely made in jest. Aika closed her eyes and breathed in loudly as Fina squeezed her hand.
She wasn't back in that prison cell. Vigoro wasn't here. And she'd long since gotten over the fears that had haunted her from getting forced up close and personal with his pocket rocket.
"Well." Vyse rumbled, a throaty growl that made her relax. "You castrated him once. What do you say we do the same to his ship?" He slipped in between Aika and Fina and took their hands in his own. "Lawrence. Bring us in. Enrique, you have the conn."
"Aye, captain." Prince Enrique said faintly, looking over to Moegi. "Charging the Moonstone Cannon, then?"
"You want us to fight him like we did Gregorio?" Vyse exclaimed, surprised and indignant.
"No." Enrique quickly dismissed the idea, his face going hard again. "No, there will be no half-measures this time, and no mercy." He looked over to Moegi and nodded solemnly. "Vigoro is an invader and an inveterate rapist. His life is forfeit. As Prince of Valua, exiled or no, I declare him an enemy of all True Valuans and of Yafutoma and all of Arcadia." He nodded once more to Moegi in respect, then went up to stand next to Lawrence at the forward windows. "Kill the bastard."
Aika cracked a laugh at that, feeling a little faint until Vyse pulled her in closer, and she saw Fina mirroring her to make a small little semicircle with their hands linked. Fina's shining eyes met Aika's, and the Silvite nodded before letting her silver aura blossom into life around her. Vyse's blue one came next, and with another soft breath, Aika let her red aura blend to match it. They took their strength and blended it, and Aika felt Fina lead their awareness through the ship and down into the moonstone reservoir. She felt the power of their magic reinforce the hull and seethe through the ship's wires.
Aika felt the Moonstone Cannon awaken, and the tingling of its building charge sucked up her senses.
Then she felt Fina's presence wrap around her, and Vyse's join it soon after. It felt so good, and so like it had this morning when they'd enveloped her in a three-way hug to reassure her when she had been terrified after looking down into the Abyss.
We are with you, she heard Fina's voice promise her. We are with you, Aika.
There were six kinds of magic, all of them tied to one of the Moons that hung above Arcadia like watchful guardians above their homelands. Most people had an affinity for one kind above the rest. Fina's mastery of magic was unparallelled, and her aura and her strength burned unmistakably silver. Vyse's aura ran blue like the coat he never went without or the flag of freedom he bound himself to, but he commanded a mastery of red magic above all other types first. And Aika's aura blazed red like the homeland of her long-dead father, but her primary strength ran in opposition to that promise, of healing and warding.
But beyond that, magic had a feel to it that a person only really got to feel when they were around someone using it enough to pick up on the nuances of it. When they let someone else cast magic on them regularly. When she used her power to heal them, or when she cast that momentary, but all too versatile anti-magic shield, Vyse and Fina said that the warmth they felt from it was like a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds.
With their hands interlinked and Fina guiding them as they fed their power into the ship, it was all too easy to slip away from herself and to just feel. To feel Vyse's power as it flowed through her, drifting up her arm and around her heart with the hint of his smile before it reached to her own and their spiritual energy dove into the depths of the metal warship's moonstone heart. To feel Fina's magic, strong and unbreaking, cling to her shoulders like a mantle. One that was warm and comforting in a way that Aika had never known she'd missed and needed. They said her strength was like the warm sun breaking through on a cold day. Vyse's strength felt like a blanket she hid under when there was a fire nearby. Fina's felt like a warm bath that Aika wanted to go boneless and sink into and never climb out of. They were poor descriptors, but there was one trend to it all that the three of them agreed on and loved to feel. Above everything else, when they let their spiritual power combine and flow into each other, there was a feeling of absolute safety and trust. Even when they were charging an enormous cannon.
Especially when said cannon was aimed at a man that Aika despised and Fina and Vyse would gladly flay to the bone to please her.
"Vigoro's not one for tactics." Enrique's voice said, cutting in through the dim haze of their awareness of each other and the ship as their power drained into it. "He prefers to line up in front of his enemy and pound away at them with relentless shelling until they surrender or they're dead. If we try to fight him like we did Gregorio, he'll either call in his other ships to box us in or punish us with secondary cannon fire until we play his game. He's a blunt instrument on a good day, and the admiralty uses him when brutal suppression is called for." Enrique paused, considering. "It's possible that the ships we took down who were chasing Admiral Komullah's surviving fleet were originally under his command before they were split off for that assignment."
"Suggestions?" Vyse asked, his voice drifting a little as the reservoir took in more power.
"Beat him at his own game. Miss Fina, you said that you were working on improvements to the Moonstone Cannon, yes?"
Aika cracked one eye open reluctantly and watched Fina open both of hers with an amused confidence. "We focused the beam for a tighter strike and less power bleed." The Silvite said. "It should improve the range and particle density. And yes, they were finished before we hit Yafutoma, so…"
"That's our play then." Vyse said. "Lawrence?"
"Moving into position, captain." The purple-coated sailor said, turning the wheel to get them lined up. They were on a head-on course for the Draco and he reached for the trigger. "Moonstone Cannon powering up."
Aika closed her eyes again, diving back into the feeling of the ship around them and the lives aboard her that Fina could feel so intimately. When Vyse had first told her about experiencing the sensation of Fina's presence so close to his own when they'd charged the cannon together, she had been jealous of it. The next time they did it, she insisted on being a part of it, and now, neither of her lovers ever protested when she left engineering in the hands of Lapen and Hans to join them on the bridge.
Where else would she want to be but with them, feeling them, and doing the impossible?
Charging the Moonstone Cannon alone had drained Fina so terribly the first time they'd used it that she slipped into black sleep and didn't wake up for hours. Charging it with Fina and Vyse had still winded them. Charging it with all three, and with the modifications that they had put in made it feel almost effortless. Or perhaps that was just an illusion created by being bound so closely to her mates when Fina linked them in the way that Aika and Vyse couldn't manage alone
"Holy...Cannon's approaching peak charge!" Lawrence declared, the surprise he was feeling almost making him sound emotional. "Captain!"
"It's all right." Vyse waved off his concern. "Everything's fine."
"But, captain…" Enrique started. Fina cut him off.
"It's fine. Lawrence?"
"Almost ready to fire. I've got a bead on the Draco. But they have a bead on us as well. We're out of turret range still, so are they…The Draco's slowing down."
"It's preparing to fire." Enrique declared hurriedly. "The recoil on the main gun is so powerful that it jerks the ship backwards. I saw a report once about it. The Draco Cannon procedures call for them to come to a full stop to match bearings and fire, and to only re-engage the engines once the shell is unleashed. Otherwise the strain of fighting against the recoil would cause them to shred their engines."
"Moonstone Cannon's ready to fire." Lawrence said, and Aika finally opened her eyes again. Looking out through the front window, she could see the slide rail above that menacing aperture pointed at them moving backwards, cocking the barrel. There was a slight shudder that passed through the hull as the ship's forward bow split open on its hinge to allow the cannon to extend out into firing position.
"Aim for that gun. Straight on." Vyse blurted out.
"Sir?" Lawrence said, a question and a plea all at once. A plea to move out of harm's way, or to try to anyways. A direct hit from that shell would rip the Delphinus in two, magical reinforcement or no.
Aika looked over to Vyse and found him staring out the bridge's reinforced windows as well, and there was a look on his face that she knew all too well. It was the same look he'd had when he told her to throw her Pyri spell grenade out of the train car's window instead of hurling it at Galcian.
It was the look of a man who had a plan and was ready to set it in motion.
"Do as he says." Enrique said, acting as Vyse's first officer just as he was required to. He seconded the order and left no further room for dispute. "Straight on, Mr. Lawrence."
"A - aye, sir." The helmsman made one last adjustment, bringing the targeting reticule projected up on the windshield directly in line with the Draco and its behemoth of a weapon. He gripped the trigger. "On your order."
Vyse waited, and everyone held their breath. Aika could almost feel the anguished screaming they held back. Why are you waiting? Fire already! Fire now, before they kill us!
No such doubts lingered in her own mind, or in Fina's, given the Silvite's placid calm. Fina hadn't even opened her eyes, she was just standing there with one hand on the feeder line and her aura still glowing, with a gentle smile on her face.
"NOW!" Vyse finally said, as the cannon finished chambering the round and the slide came back forward to prepare to fire. Lawrence's whole arm twitched as he pulled the trigger, and then there was a glowing nimbus of coruscating light shimmering off of the nose.
Their shots went off almost simultaneously. The blast of smoke from the Draco's cannon when it went off was visible for less than the blink of an eye before the Moonstone Cannon erupted in angry violet light, and everyone on the bridge found themselves staring as the beam shot ahead faster than a bullet could travel, engulfing a large mass entirely. It was the shell that had been fired at them, and it seemed to freeze in flight, trapped in that beam for a moment before it was completely blown away and turned to dust, and the lance of light carried on. The Draco, bounced backwards from the recoil of its shot, was swallowed in the blast.
When it came side-spinning out of it a second later, with the beam flashing for three seconds more before giving out, it looked less like a ship and more like a smoldering ruin that shouldn't have been able to fly. The massive gun on its prow that was the entire point of the ship's unusual design no longer existed; there were just tattered ribbons of metal peeled back like a deck of cards held edge-first into the wind. The cannon's sheer bulk and size had been the Draco's saving grace. What was left of the ship's hull was blackened with charred, bubbling paint. The superstructure itself seemed riddled with holes either from the beam or from debris from the cannon that had punctured through the armor plating after it had been blown apart. Of the other weapons that had once been bristling over the Draco, not one of them was undamaged.
It was, after the look of absolute sheer relief Vyse had given when they'd found him in Daccat's Tomb and the sleepy warm smile Fina had made the morning after she and the Silvite had first made love in Nasrad, one of the most beautiful things Aika had ever seen. It made her laugh. When she saw that the Draco was limping away as fast as it possibly could, she laughed even louder.
"Yeah! Who's the bitch now, Vigoro?!" She crowed, which got some looks in her direction followed by some relieved laughter at having survived an encounter with the ship that had been called 'The Weapon Of First Resort' by its blood-soaked career.
"Outstanding work!" Vyse praised the crew, and flashed his warmest smile to Aika and Fina before giving them both a far too platonic hug. "Let that be a reminder to anyone who ever thinks it's a good idea to cross you two. There's nothing you can't do if you put your minds together...including making a better gun, it seems."
Fina rolled her eyes. "I've told you before, Vyse, it's not a proper projectile weapon at all. It merely supercharges…" The Silvite paused when he kept smiling at her and shook her head. "Never mind."
"I hate to break up the celebration, but it seems a little premature." Enrique said, dampening the mood from his post beside the helm. "We've still got the rest of the Armada coming out for us, and if my eyes serve me, that's the Lynx turning in towards us with four ships flanking her."
"Figures." Vyse sighed. "Belleza's probably hopping mad that we pulled a fast one on her." He seemed like he wanted to say more, but that was when the world upended itself again and a light even more blinding than the blast from the Moonstone Cannon shot up into the sky. Gale-force winds that came from nowhere buffeted the Delphinus and sent everyone tumbling to the floor.
"The hell is that?!" Domingo demanded, using the chart table as a handhold to pull himself back up. As the winds died down, all eyes went to the light burning in the distance, and Lawrence turned the ship to stare at it.
Aika felt her mouth run dry. The others on the crew probably didn't know what to make of the beam of shimmering blue light that shot up out of the crater from distant Mount Kazai. But she did. And Vyse did.
And Fina, who stood there trembling in fear and fury alike, definitely knew what that light meant. They had all been witness to two other such pillars of light, one red and one green.
They knew what it looked like when someone awakened a Gigas.
"No!" Fina yelled, and screamed again wordlessly as she dug her fingernails hard enough into her palms to leave marks. "Not again! This isn't happening! Not again!"
But it was, and when the light died down, two things were flying away from Mount Kazai. The first was a small personal ship that Moegi, who stole Domingo's spyglass, swore loudly at in Yafutoman before switching to the Mid-Ocean dialect. "It is Minister Kangan Kurowei's personal ship." She looked to Vyse and Aika and Fina, her hands shaking. "You said, the Maga Sphere could awaken a monster."
"Yes." Fina said, staring at the second, much larger thing flying away from the sacred mountain as the ship's escort. A terrifying winged creature of shimmering blue wings, a silver carapace, and chromatic fringes. The Silvite was furious. "Bluheim. Who was probably the source of your legends about the Divine Wind."
"We did not know." Moegi confessed, staring at the monster as it shrieked loud enough to be painful even at a distance. "I did not know it was real!"
Aika scowled, and watched the Armada turn to address the more serious threat as the surviving Tenkou ships scattered and ran for their lives. "But Kangan sure the hell did."
They had survived Recumen through sheer dumb luck and by trading outright suicide for a hopeless battle against a Valuan flagship in a fishing boat converted to kill arcwhales. They had survived Grendel by not getting punched and by knocking it into a crevasse when it suffered a headache. Both times, they hadn't actually managed to damage the living weapons of a lost age, they'd merely survived until they could manage to neutralize the Gigas itself or their controller.
Fina was fast approaching another meltdown equal to the one she'd had when King Ixa'taka had awakened Grendel, and Aika found herself wondering again why the peoples of the Old World had thought the Gigas such a good idea. They were nothing but trouble, and the wars between them had triggered the wrath of the heavens. The Rains of Destruction. Recumen had turned the desert to glass where its searing eyebeams had landed. Grendel had torn a swath out of the rainforest just by walking through it. Bluheim was the manifestation of the Blue Moon's power, a creature who conceivably commanded the wind and the waves. And it had more firepower and destruction besides.
Aika watched as the Valuan Armada, the combined expeditionary forces of the 3rd and 4th Fleet that hadn't been lost in battle already tried desperately to put up a fight against it. It was hopeless. Torpedoes and shells battered the thing and made it stumble before it got the wind back in its wings, but nothing got through its tough hide. Nothing hurt it. The Gigas Bluheim settled itself, flapping to hover in place, and then a dread light filled its wings and settled in the rainbow-hued fringe along the edges.
It pulled its wings back, unfolding them to their full span, and then slammed them out. It was no ordinary wind it unleashed, but one filled with crackling energy that seemed to blow out windows and cause explosions when those thin tendrils of light in the unleashed windstorm hit something solid. Suffice it to say, after being hit once with that energy-laced gust, the Valuan Armada did the unthinkable. They did something that they'd only ever done one other time in Aika's memory.
Faced with their destruction at the hands of the blue Gigas who had been activated and was operating beyond their control, they turned tail and ran. And then Bluheim turned its attention to the small Tenkou ships, already battered, already fleeing, and no match at all for the power that the Gigas possessed.
"The Divine Wind." Moegi said, her eyes glazed over in fear as she sank to her knees and stared at the decimation unfurling in front of them. "The Divine Wind. It's real. It's real." She kept on stammering that, over and over as the princess of Yafutoma came face to face with the truth of the world. That there were things out there worse than conniving ministers who would sell out their Emperor and the royal family and his people for power. That there was an entire world outside of Yafutoma, a world called Arcadia.
And in the skies of Arcadia, there were Monsters.
It was an absolute worst-case scenario, and in the face of it, Aika found herself reaching for Fina to hold her lover together before she cracked completely. She had no good ideas to offer, no real solutions.
Vyse did, though. He was the captain. He always had ideas. He always knew just what to say. Especially now. There was a moment, just one moment where he looked almost panicked. But then the moment passed, his mouth closed, his lips thinned. His eyes narrowed, and the scar on his cheek (The scar she loved to trace first thing in the morning to wake him up, because no matter how many times he said he loved her, she needed only to look at it to remember how he had gotten it saving her life when they were still children to know it down to her bones) rippled when the muscles underneath flexed.
"Don't freeze up now, people. We're not through yet." He said, his voice hard and commanding. Every head on the bridge turned to him even with Bluheim flying outside and making ready to rampage on the scattered Tenkou. "Lawrence. Start us after Bluheim, we've got to keep the Tenkou safe." Vyse went back to the captain's chair and sat down on it, settling down on it without a tremor of doubt or worry. He adjusted the black pirate's hat that he'd not gone without since they made for The Dark Rift and sat up straight, looking out through the bridge's reinforced windows with brown burnished steel in his eyes, backlit by the blue of his Code and the skies he sailed. Aika's breath caught in her chest and she froze watching him then, and the words of the fortuneteller Kalifa came unbidden.
'What guidance do you seek, Lord of Rogues?' The woman that hid behind thick glasses had asked him. Vyse had laughed it off, refuting the title. Aika saw it, though. For a second, she saw the Lord of Rogues that Kalifa had.
He reached for the toggle on the ship's intercom beside his chair and activated it, and everyone listened.
"All hands, listen up. We just blasted Vigoro's face off and what's left of the Armada is running for the hills. And ordinarily, I'd be the first one of you to jump up in the air and start cheering. The only problem is, we weren't the ones who sent them packing, and neither are the Tenkou."
He drummed his fingertips on his armrest. "You all know why we're sailing the world, what we're chasing after. The Moon Crystals, so we can stop Valua from using them to wage war and cause the Rains of Destruction to come down on all our heads again. You all know that we found the Blue Moon Crystal in that giant mountain, and that we were hoping to take it with us when we left. Well, Valua invading put a pin in that balloon awful fast, and it turns out that the Moon Crystal didn't get taken by them after all. The Yafutoman minister who sold out their king and his country for power had it all along, and he's decided to wake up the monster sleeping in the mountain. The Blue Gigas is out to play, it's following Kangan's orders, and it just scattered the Armada. Now it's going after the Tenkou, the Yafutomans who were willing to stand up and fight against oppression just like us Blue Rogues. It's because of them we were able to get back aboard this ship! It's because of them that we were able to save you! And I'll be damned if I let them die for it!"
There was an art to giving speeches. Dyne didn't like to, he preferred to give orders and to rely on quiet, cool authority, which was inspiring in its own way. Still, the old man must have had some talent at it when he was younger. How the hell else had he talked Centime and all the others to abandon Valua and flock to the banner of the Blue Rogues twenty years ago? And Vyse's mom Relena, who was her mom for all intents and purposes, and had accepted the role of being Fina's by dint of their bond with her son, had always had a way of speaking that could make Aika glow or shrivel, depending on what she'd done.
Vyse preferred to speak simply and directly most of the time, but he definitely had the talent for it. He just saved it for when it mattered most. Like right freaking now.
"I'll level with you all. Myself, Aika, and Fina have gone up against Gigas before. Recumen in the Nasrian desert. Grendel in the forests of Ixa'taka. We couldn't hurt either of them, and it was a miracle we lived through it. And unlike Bluheim which is out in front of us right now, those two were ground-bound. The Gigas are the monsters of the Old World, things that should never have been made. Things bad enough that the Old World got wiped out to stop them. If we could get to Kangan, tear the Blue Moon Crystal out of his hands, we could command the Gigas to stop. But you know as well as I do that's not going to happen, not with that monster at his beck and call. There's no running away this time. There's no flying out of range this time. There's just a monster that will kill everyone around it, and nothing for it but to try and put it down. We've never been able to really hurt a Gigas before, much less kill it. But here's the rub...we didn't have all of you before. And we Didn't. Have. This. Ship."
Fina had wiped the last of her tears away by then. Aika held her best girl tight and felt something brighter burn through her, ripping away the grief of going up against a third Gigas and filling her with resolve. This was Vyse's real power. Others could give orders. Others could lead. Vyse did all of that and more.
He made people follow him. He made them believe.
Vyse stared out the window, looking at Bluheim as they drew closer to it and the great flying behemoth seemed to finally recognize them as a greater threat than the Tenkou.
"Valua built an entire ship around the Moonstone Cannon. Unaltered, we blew a hole through the Grand Fortress with it and flew out. And Fina and Aika have made it stronger since then. We've stopped pursuing fleets, we split the monster inside the Dark Rift in two. This is the best damn ship in all of Arcadia and it has the best damn crew! We are all that stands between Yafutoma's freedom and survival and that thing, and Blue Rogues help out those in need! Today, we make a stand! Today, we save another kingdom from Valua and from the Gigas that would destroy it! Today, we kill a god!"
The answering roars overwhelmed the speakers on the bridge as every station responded to his impassioned speech. It was enough to make the cries from the bridge crew equal their fervor, even Fina. The Silvite seemed restored, and even Moegi was back on her feet, color returning back to her face.
"Can you really do it?" The princess asked Vyse, as the Blue Rogue hopped off of his chair and sauntered down into the bridge to stand between the helm and the feeder lines to the moonstone reservoir. "Can you really kill that thing?"
Aika laughed and chose to answer for Vyse. "Guess we'll find out, your highness. Just remember; Blue Rogues never back down from a greater danger."
"Not when innocent lives are on the line." Vyse hummed in agreement, patting Lawrence on the shoulder before activating the squawk next to the helm. "All hands, we're engaging!"
