Author's Note: Let's to ahead with a new chapter! I titled this one after everyone's favorite quote from one of the prequel movies' title crawls.
Also, I do not own SAO or Star Wars.
Chapter Thirty-Six - Heroes on Both Sides
Silica was running back through the hallways of the Dromund Kass laboratories as she tried to create distance between her and the treacherous Bounty Hunter, Lisbeth. The girl had been deceived by letting Lisbeth back into the capital to arm the Shock Drum that Emperor Lusac needed to be worked on. Now the Emperor could just transport the fully live planet killer to any system in the galaxy, and destroy at his own will.
She needed to get away, and warn the Republic, but as she passed through the dark, clear black tunnels, all she could hear was burning fuel flying from behind.
Silica dodged out of the way from an incoming wrist rocket, and turned to find Lisbeth was following her from above in an elite Power Tech jetpack. The little girl used this small opportunity to try and tack her confused friend out of all of this.
"Lisbeth! Why are you turning on us again? We want you to help the Republic and help us get out of the game!"
"You CAPTURED me!" Lisbeth yelled down to the tiny little girl trying to flee from her aerial attack. "You and that bearded idiot took me from the Empire, then tried tricking me into helping you win this war!"
"Lisbeth, Emperor Lusac is the one tricking you, not us!" Silica rolled sideways, and shot several glowing orange lasers at the bounty hunter, who easily dodge them by hovering lazily to the left. "We need you to help us get Asuna and the others back!"
"Listen to yourself..." Lisbeth wanted to stop flying and just nuke the whole building down on this idiotic girl. "Asuna is NOT your friend from some other video game! She is a Sith Lord who KILLED your Jedi Master Leafa, and if he's not careful, she'll kill that Kirito boy too!"
Silica stopped running, and held her arms down as they quaked with anger. Lisbeth halted in her pursuit, and lowered her blaster pistol to aim right at the stalled smuggler.
Finally, the tiny girl shared her thoughts. "Asuna is my friend...I don't remember her...or any of my thoughts in the real world, but I know I love her deep down...I love you too...and Kirito, and the others...we need to atop fighting, and put this war aside."
Lisbeth rolled her eyes, and switched over to her flamethrower again. "Give me a break...just hold still and shut up for a little bit while I..."
"AGH!" The Scoundrel Smuggler girl shot several large thermal detonators up into the air, each marked by some different color. She then hit a button on her wrist and cloaked away into a mysterious haze of blue.
Lisbeth flew through the barrage of falling bombs, but one hit the right engine in her jet back, and forced her to take the machine of before catching on fire and exploding into the wall. She held her guns high in the air, then switched on her night vision to better see in the dark of the hallway.
"That little..."
A small fist came out of nowhere, and slammed into Lisbeth's left cheek. She almost dropped her guns, then nearly took a second hit from the right before blocking with the armored hand, and slamming her own fist into the now vision Silica.
The shorter girl took the hit right in the face, and tried staying on her feet as she shot another bomb out from her side that released thick green smoke around the field. This was her opportunity to roll out of harm's way yet again, and try to come around for another sneak attack.
Lisbeth just signed, and turned on her helmet's internal targeting computer as she powered on another wrist rocket, reserved for the galaxy's most annoying smuggler behind Klein.
"I can't take this anymore...Lusac promised me big bucks for this mission, but I just can't..." She yelled to herself in anger as the smoke started to clear. "No reward is worth this!"
Klein was twirling through the stars above Dromund Kaas, and every turn that he made was still only in vein as the excellent Imperial Pilot flying the Phantom starship in front of him managed to avoid every shot he sent her way.
Argo snickered to herself as she tried to set a new course around the field. "Klein's supposed to be their best pilot, and I haven't flown through a dogfight since the attack on Alderaan!"
Klein spun through the debris of one of his side's own cruisers as Argo made him weave through a dangerous bit of space just to claim his prize. He shot out a new set of ion torpedoes, but the Agent of the Empire zigzagged away from both of them, and easily twirled out of range from the blaster shots that followed after.
Klein was starting to lose his patience. He was going so hot in his chase for Argo's shuttle, that he never noticed what she doing during the entire flight.
The Imperial Agent was shooting off dormant proton canisters all around the flagship Rath. All she needed to do now as fly away from the expected blast radius, and take the shields down for the Republic's primary vessel.
"Red Leader, do you copy?! KLEIN! Do you copy?!"
Klein switched on his comms. Link again, and spoke into the mic. "Command, this is Red Leader! What do ya what? I'mma little busy here!"
Chrysheight yelled over to his subordinate as he looked outside at the hull his endangered flagship. "That fighter your following is dropping photon bombs all over out ship. She's going to blow us sky high if you don't take her down before ignition!"
"AGh, what!?" Klein looked out his window, and noticed tiny flashing blue specks dotted all around the flagship. He yelled away from the microphone, and turned back to address the admiral. "That'll take out the shields and leave you guys wide open!"
Chrysheight nodded, and turned toward the center of the bay window. "You need to keep up the pursuit, but shoot at her ship on the open space side. We're going to take our cruiser into challenge the Space Station. Even if we manage to get blasted by those bombs, it'll be okay. We'll try to take their command station's shields out with our own hull by crashing into them if we start to go down."
"I guess that's an okay back up plan. It might draw the Rosario down to the party too...but I got a better idea..."
Klein slammed on the thrusters to his Salamander's engines, and darted forward in a righteous fury toward the back of the Informant.
"How about I just blow this up and we all go home!" His fighter bullets were shooting a red frenzy all around Argo's hull, but nothing was landing as the Imperial Agent continued to spiral her flight path around the bullet's barrage. This left her open to drop more and more photon bombs down on the surface of the Rath. Klein did manage to shoot some of these down, but more were escaping his shot as the flagship's shields began dwindling by the second.
"I can't hit her!" Klein yelled out to himself, trying to keep his wits about him. "At this rate I'll just be hitting my own ship's hull with my..."
Then a light clicked in his head. He realized that if Chrysheight was so comfortable with using the Rath as a giant battering ram to take out the space station, then letting Argo take a few shots at their shields really meant nothing. What did matter to Chrysheight, and now Klein, was taking out the Imperial's command station.
He quickly grinned to himself, and stopped firing at Argo. She turned her view to her rear radar, and let one of her eyebrows float upward in curiosity as she stopped firing her bombs for a moment. "Is he giving up? Kind of an odd time to let me take the win..." She then noticed his Salamander turn full-speed toward the command station, which caused her eyes to double in size as she tried scrambling her engines into reverse.
"He's going for our main command bridge!" Argo knew if Klein and all the other fighters were being ordered to attack the Imperial space station at all costs, then bombing the Rath with her photon bombs was a waste of time. She also knew that if her team's command station went down, then they would no longer be able to call in any more reinforcements to keep them afloat in this battle. Thus, she turned on her high-powered engines and flew right for her own command ship in hot pursuit of Klein's smuggler vessel.
However, just as she noticed Klein's ship pass over the command bridge to the space station, it curved upward at a violent speed, and U-turned to point in her direction. The last thing she saw was Klein laying out all the ammunition in his laser canons, sending every shot right at Argo's now exposed ship flying right behind him.
"All too easy." Captain Klein of the Salamander muttered to himself as the Informant and it's rambunctious pilot, Argo, lit up in flames as it crashed into the bay window of the space station's command center. "All too easy."
Meanwhile, Agil was down inside the Sith Space Station with his blue lightsaber up deflecting shots from auto-turrets scattered throughout the base. He occasionally ran into NPC imperials trying to stop his descent, and even more rarely found a few enemy player characters defending command stations, who put up an even more impressive fight.
The Jedi Guardian stopped to channel the Force, and felt his surroundings as he scanned the space port's map for the missing sniper, Sinon. Finally, he made his way to another set of blast doors, and rolled his eyes.
"This again? When is she going to learn..." He stuck the tip of his blue light saber through the door's metal face, and slowly but surely cut a large enough hole for his body to fit through, and quickly found out it was large enough for Sinon to light up with return fire from the other side.
Agil had pressed the slab of door that he cut out through to the other side, and now picked it up with levitation, and tossed it forward to a wall of Sith troopers. Sinon rolled away, but most of her imperial allies managed to get smashed by the large hunk of metal.
Agil came through, and rolled out to the center of the room, quickly realizing as he stood up, that he was now surrounded by a new wave of troops led by Admiral Sinon.
"Hello there!" Agil remained tall, and held a sturdy smile as his blue lightsaber was kept parallel to his body. "Nice place you got here, Admiral Sinon."
"General Agil." Sinon spoke slowly as the scope of her rifle lined up with her right eye. "You are a bold one...how do you know my name?"
"Sinon?" Agil asked her back. "Kirito told me. Haven't you been paying any attention this whole time. We're all friends IRL! How weird is it that you, me, Klein, and Lisbeth knew each other from that battle on Coruscant! Kirito and Master Leafa know us from the outside world too!"
"And Lady Asuna..." Sinon sounded more annoyed as he explained the situation to her. "And that little smuggler, Silica. We're all best friends in the real world, and go on many adventures in many different games."
Agil was outnumbered, but easily held the situation in his hands. "Well, from what I barely remember I really only play ALO, now. I tried that Ordinal Scale when it was hot on the market, and I've kind of gotten into GGO with the rest of you, but man, that one really is your world. I hear you're like a super star in that one! Kirito told us all about it!"
"I have no idea what game you're talking about..." She looked away from the scope on her rifle, and stared at him through her Mandalorian visor. "I only remember ALO, and a little from that Augma game...you all met in something called SAO."
"I guess...but that's the one I have trouble with." Agil scratched his head. "Kirito thinks the memories from the games we played the most are the weakest. Asuna remembered ALO and GGO, but not SAO. Leafa had no idea what ALO was, but she was the one who got us all into it!"
"Right, and Kirito remembers it all." Sinon went back to aiming through her lens. "How fun for him."
"Come on, now you sound like the rest of them...you know, Kirito said you two are very close. He said he met you in GGO when he first used a lightsaber in the virtual world."
"Kirito met me in another game that had light sabers?" Sinon gasped, and slightly wanted to hear more. The other players around them were starting to grow confused, but stayed focused for the sake of their admiral.
Agil laughed, and noticed they practically had the whole room to themselves. "Well, I guess they call 'em photon-swords over there. Some copy-right thing...he said he saved your life."
"..." Sinon was speechless. Kirito, the mysterious boy that scared her back on Coruscant, and the boy who nearly turned Asuna to the light? HE saved her own life in some other world. "What game was that? In GGO?"
"You worked together in GGO...he saved your life in the real world...it was your actual life that was in danger."
Sinon's breathing stopped, and as a faint memory from a distant game and land came in and out of her mind, she yelled and shot the wall behind Agil's head, cocking her gun once more and aiming it at his forehead.
"You can't use your Jedi mind tricks on me! I already showed you they don't work!"
"You're right..." Agil smiled, and gave his blue lightsaber a twirl while he raised his left hand up toward the far blast door on the other side of the chamber. "But maybe I am tricking you now in some other way?"
The door was now unlocked, and a swarm of Jedi Knights and Republic commandos plowed through the command bridge, and engaged the Sith and Imperial forces in an all-out war. Agil blocked her shot, then raced ahead to take her out before the next shot.
Sinon slid away, and tossed a small round droid into the crowd of Republic troopers. It came to life, and started zapping them in the middle of all their fights. She also pulled out a large, double-sided knife powered with a purple power cell to hit Agil's lightsaber attack away, and stood up to deploy her small red personal shield.
Then, she hit a booster, and displayed a large red protective orb around the entire Sith command crew and pilot staff, to protect them from the fighting going on at the other side of the room. Agil jumped forward, and threw on his own blue force field as he ran forward taking easy hits to chase down the admiral sniper.
She took several shots at him, but the man's lightsaber skills were too fast for her to hit skin. Her ultimate move was an Orbital Strike used to take out multiple foes at once, but being inside the Sith Fleet instead of underneath it, that tactic would fail her here if tried indoors.
Agil, therefore, had no hard time taking out the small shield keeping him from Sinon, and disabled it with two swift strokes. He took her shot to the shoulder as a sacrifice, and picked her up with the Force to bring her over in his area.
Agil respected the girl, but knew she was too dangerous to be kept alive. He drew his blade closer to take her life, until a large Imperial X-70B Phantom starship crashed through the high command's blast window in the center of the Space station. The explosion killed all who were near it with the fiery impact alone, and the blast affected the large battle on the other side of the room quite a lot, scattering all players there out into the halls.
Sinon coughed up some smoke as she leaned forward to gather what had happened. Red warning lights had just activated, and before any poor stragglers were sucked into the deepness of virtual space, emergency windows came closed where the glass bay window once resided.
She looked around in a panicked frenzy as the command station for the Sith defense was coming down, but heard a familiar voice yelling to her side.
"Sinon...! I can't...!"
She looked to find the pilot of the defeated starship, Argo, was trapped under a large piece of debris. The Imperial agent had no way of getting out, even when Sinon rushed over to rescue her.
"I can't move it...it's too heavy!" Sinon tried to reason with her ally, but the dusty blonde Operative slowly raised her hand, and pointed to the other side of the crash.
"Forget me...kill the Jedi!"
Sinon turned, and noticed Agil was also trapped under the rubble. He was clawing at the air with one of his arms, and even when he tried to move the rubble off his body, it was wedged into the room too far in to be shoved so easily. He could wiggle it with the Force, but the crushing weight from the debris made him weaker by the second.
He looked up, and saw Sinon's pleading eyes, and then noticed the piece holding Argo down was much smaller than his. The Jedi only had one hand free, but smiled as he gave the sniper a silent nod, and raised his hand forward.
"Stop!" Sinon had her gun out, but put it away as she cried out to the rogue Jedi. "STOP IT! You're the enemy! Don't help a fallen Imperial when you're in the middle of a battle!"
Agil kept his eyes closed, and just with his final breath, he spoke a lasting sentence.
"Sinon...I'm only trying to help my friends escape... now go!"
He tossed the large metal sheet over Argo out of the way, and collapsed to the ground. Sinon quickly picked up her fallen friend, and made way for the exit before the entire space station came crumbling down.
Agil had no strength to move his head, but still heard the comms link that was placed in his ear from the space battle.
"YAHOO! Command this is Red Leader: The Phantom is down and the threat of the space station has been neutralized! Start you assault on the Rosario!"
Chrysheight howled with laughter at Klein's call, and carried out his next order. "Excellent work! The Mother's Rosario has depleted her shields, and is losing engine power quickly. I'd say this is a job well done for the Republic."
"Good job guys..." Agil whispered to himself as the last bits of breath left his body. "...even you, Klein."
Back to Silica and Lisbeth, the angry Bounty Hunter now had to pursue her scurrying prey on foot, and with that in mind, the sinister Power Tech started programming all her wrist equipment to power on the moment she raised her arm.
"When I find this little...urghhh there's gonna be hell to pay!" She stopped through the dark of the man-made cave, and traced her own steps back to the lab room to scan the boxes and lab equipment for Silica. What she did not expect to see was a blaster bolt shoot right for her chest. Just at the last second though, she blocked the shot reflexively with her left arm, damaging her flamethrower, but saving her life.
She raised her left pistol to the source of the shot and saw Silica crying beside the large Shock Drum, who had managed to switch over the active function thanks to Lisbeth's handy-work, and was ready to power the shock waves on at a single press of a button.
"We are not enemies." Silica demanded with tears now streaming down her face. "We are friends. I believe Kirito, and Klein, and that weird Chrysheight...we are all friends in some other universe."
Lisbeth kept her gun raised, and shouted back to her enemy. "I don't care what world we're all friends in! WE'RE STILL TRAPPED IN THIS WORLD! As far as I can see, we're all reds and blues...except that idiot Kirito."
Silica cracked a tiny smile through her sobbing face. "You love him...in the real world...or at least you have a tiny crush on him."
"SAY WHAAAAT!?" Lisbeth's wrist rocket in her right hand prematurely shot into the ceiling, rattling both girls around, and forcing Lisbeth to now aim two weapons at the little girl's head. "Say that again! I dare you!"
Silica sighed. "I'm not sure if it's true, it's just an observation he made in the real world...he said he thinks I have a crush on him too. That's why you and I bond with one another so much."
"I don't believe this..." Lisbeth's anger was swelling, and her heart was beating faster while Silica carried on.
"But we don't let it ruin our friendship with him, or Asuna. He said we're all super close. You used to be a blacksmith in SAO, and you made weapons personally for Asuna."
"I...?" Lisbeth's tongue was tying up, and her hands were starting to lower a bit as she tried to collect her thoughts. "Hold on...so Asuna and I are really that close out there too?"
"Mhmm!" She tried nodding through all her emotions. "If you can believe what Kirito says! I'd just...I'd like to get out of this game already, and see it all for myself..."
Lisbeth held her guns high again, and looked Silica in the face with confused eyes, finally she closed them, and cracked a grin.
*BANG*
She moved the blaster barrel away from Silica, and hit the machine to turn off the Shock Drum once and for all. Silica could not believe that Lisbeth blew up their only hope for victory, until Lisbeth removed her helmet, and delivered her original smile to a friend from back home.
"If you have so much faith in Kirito, then, I guess we won't be needing that thing to win this war after all."
So this chapter was mainly there to focus on the supporting friend cast. Was the plan always to let some goofy machine take down the mighty Emperor of the Sith? Of course not! Let the Hero take the win!
But now we have to check in on the hero and his broken family...
Until Next time!
