BETWEEN THREE ROGUES

By Eric 'Erico' Lawson

Fifty-Two: Bad Moon Rising

Dangral Island Outskirts

363 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

The patrols were just as thick as Vyse had expected they would be. Had they tried this in the Delphinus or any other airship, he was certain that they wouldn't have cleared the defensive picket line that surrounded Galcian's stronghold. That was what Dangral was, really. The Lord Admiral's new stronghold that acted as a placeholder for his coup forces until…

Until he and Ramirez grabbed hold of that ultimate power which had once shattered the world. Moons, wasn't that a thought. The voice of his father guided him again, surly as it was, and Vyse knew now that all of Dyne's hard lessons had been learned through painful experience. He'd been trying to spare his son the same.

A good captain knows that he must be the guiding voice of reason and purpose for his crew. Even when everything seems like it's going to hell around you, you have to be the thing that holds them together even if you're falling apart. Remember what I told you about finding people you can trust to advise you, so you don't have to think of everything yourself? This is much the same. Find the times when you can fall apart and put yourself back together again and be strong where the others are weak.

Fina's Silvite skyship moved faster and was much smaller than anything else that was in the air. By keeping to the clouds when possible, the near silent vessel had slipped them past the net. Fina had tried to aim them directly for the smaller island sitting a few miles short of the Great Vortex as it was the site of the elevator that they now knew led to Soltis, but the line was just too clustered there. The Valuans under Galcian were keeping it guarded even from skirmish raids, so they had to fly for Dangral itself. They would have to make for the now completed lift platform which connected Dangral to the island elevator to Soltis.

And unlike the last time they had snuck into Dangral, they would have to do it without Enrique. Without Kirala and Urala.

Without Fina.

Fina took the helm of the skyship when Vyse, Aika, and Gilder got off, but she was in no way ready for a combat mission. As she'd said when they left Windmill Island, I'm getting there. She wasn't there yet, and she was wise enough to tell him that she'd be a liability in combat.

Even though she wasn't ready for a fight, Fina was more than ready to be useful. "The communications system on my skyship doesn't typically operate on Amplitude Modulation frequencies, mostly Gigabit broadband and -" A litany of technical terms that Vyse was certain even went over Aika's head, "- but I should be able to jigger a fix together to keep tuned in to the wireless telegraph traffic." A stiff breeze rolled by and Fina shivered, digging into her pocket and pulling out a blue scarf that she tied over her hair. "I'll be listening."

Vyse nodded. "This time's going to be different than the last time we were here. I'm not spoiling for a fight if I can help it."

"Wise." Gilder muttered, checking his pistols one last time before sliding them back into his holsters. "Given what you told me, it's a miracle you got out the first time, even with Admiral Gregorio covering your escape." That was true. Galcian had hit like a Valuan freight train, and he'd taken Vyse's best hit and come out on the other side of it even less mussed than Ramirez had been after Fina's Eternum spell.

"We get in. We get to the lift. We get to the elevator and we stop them." Aika concluded. "And then we're getting the hell out, hopefully dragging at least one of the Moon Crystals back with us." Just one, that was all that they needed. Just one Moon Crystal and Ramirez and Galcian wouldn't be able to undo the lock on Zelos and Soltis. Aika looked over to him and nodded grimly, flipping down her goggles. She rarely did so outside of an engineering setting, but every time she did it meant the loud, smiling, laughing personality of hers was being put into a drawer for later.

"Wait." Fina said, stopping them before they could get more than a couple of steps away. "One last thing. Aika, you have some blanks?"

Aika nodded and dug into her satchel, coming out with some unbroken and uncharged spell crystals. She put five of them into Fina's waiting hands, and Fina squeezed her fingers around them, closing her eyes and concentrating before her aura burned to silvery life.

Ten seconds later, Fina handed Aika back four charged crystals. "Riselems." Fina whispered. "You come back to me, okay?"

"Yes...but Fina? You missed one." Aika held up the uncharged crystal while Vyse gave one to Gilder, took one for himself, and shoved the other two into Aika's satchel.

Fina shook her head. "No. That one's for you to charge up. I need to see you do it."

Aika blinked. "Why?"

"Because you used Riselem to save me and bring me back, and you were bleeding afterwards." Fina said pointedly. "You have no idea how much that scared me, how guilty I still feel. So cast it again, charge up that spell crystal, and show me that you can do it without hurting yourself." Aika didn't seem entirely convinced, and Fina's face softened. "Whatever you did, whatever you were feeling, try and use it again."

Aika bit her lip, and Vyse thought back to those horrible few minutes where Fina was gone, and the Elders couldn't do a blessed thing and it was all on Aika's shoulders to bring her back. How much worse had it been for Aika, who'd tried and tried and just barely managed it?

"I can't." Aika shook her head, her voice trembling.

"Yes you can." Fina argued. "You cast Riselem under the worst possible conditions. You can do this. Maybe my way of casting it didn't work for you. You found your own way of connecting to the heart of silver magic, and maybe you only had it for a few seconds, but you had it. You found it once, you can find it again."

Aika squeezed the spell crystal and breathed in deeply. Her own red aura burned around her, but in a few seconds strands of silver light started to filter through it. The silver bands moved to her hand and sunk into the spell crystal, and her aura tapered off as she gasped and stumbled back a step.

Fina took the crystal from Aika and examined it, then smiled in obvious relief. "Yes. That's a Riselem spell all right. Different, though. Not as calm as one of mine. It feels...more emotional."

"Death's taken enough from me." Aika said, trembling a little. Vyse realized what she wasn't saying then. So did Fina, and perhaps better than he did, because she stepped down from the skyship and pulled their redheaded lover into a hug.

"And now you can stop it from taking anyone else." Fina consoled her. Aika gave her one last squeeze before Fina stepped back. "You know how to hurt someone. You know how to heal. Now you know how to resurrect someone, which means…"

Aika knew how to take life as well.

"You're ready for this." Fina told Aika instead. "Now get going. Stop Ramirez. Save the world."

"You forgot to add something, Fina." Vyse pointed out, steadying his black captain's hat. The newly inducted Blue Rogue, resplendent in her white skirt, blue top, detached sleeves and silvery half-jacket cocked her head to the side. "Come back to you."

The former Silvite smiled. "That, my love, was never in doubt."

Maybe it was because they knew the terrain. Maybe it was because they had a smaller team. Or maybe it was that something else was going on. Whatever the cause, their trip through passages Vyse was certain Galcian had checked and identified as their prior ingress and egress was remarkably absent of interference and obstacles. Given the heavier than normal presence around Dangral Island, it could be that the Valuans working for Galcian were occupied elsewhere, and there was definitely evidence of that. The intercoms sounded notifications and orders and none of the chatter had any hint that the Valuans had detected trespassers. No, it was all about coordinating material transfers. Ship deployments and crew manifests. Inventory checks. Taken in sum, Vyse's experience added it all up to the inevitable conclusion that Dangral's soldiers were gearing up for some kind of offensive or deployment. Where and for what reason, he couldn't puzzle out. Vyse was still wound up and worn down, and he knew that he wasn't at the top of his game.

They reached the midpoint of the base and the open-air platform which now featured a completed lift to the distant island on the Vortex's edge. In the gray and darker Lower Sky of Dangral and the great spinning eye to the Abyss with the winds moaning as backdrop, it felt even more ominous.

Or maybe it was the fact that there was someone already there on the platform, leaned up against one of the safety rails. Someone that they knew too well for their liking.

Admiral Vigoro.

"So. Galcian's little helper was right about you, after all." Vigoro rumbled, sizing the three of them up as he tapped the side of a very large deck gun against the side of his leg. "Although you're a couple of hours later than he expected."

"Sorry to disappoint you, bastard." Vyse answered back, sparing a quick glance behind him for the inevitable reinforcements to close the trap behind them. Vigoro snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Oh, there was supposed to be an ambush waiting for you, but like I said, you were late. And my troopers have other things to be doing, especially now that we've had to fold the 5th Fleet's personnel into the 3rd and 6th Fleets. So, you're stuck with me." He pushed off of the railing and gestured for them to step onto the platform. "Come on, we need to get going, and we've kept Galcian waiting for his prize long enough. I did promise him that I'd deliver your corpse as a housewarming present."

Housewarming present. Vyse suppressed the shiver that sentence gave him.

"Why don't you just attack us here, Admiral?" Gilder demanded, keeping his hands low by his waist but not yet drawing his guns. Smart. Vigoro was big and had the looks of a meatheaded lummox, but Vyse's father had told him stories about encounters with the man before he'd made admiral. He could get that cannon of his up just as fast as Gilder could likely draw his own guns. Vigoro just eyed all three of them and waited until they'd gotten on board the cargo platform, then slammed his fist against a green button on the control panel. It blared three low warning notes, and then they all shifted as the metal groaned and the platform's gears started them down the sloped track.

"Vyse the Hero." Vigoro drawled with absolute distaste. When had that become his moniker on the Valuan anti-piracy boards, Vyse wondered? "Gilder the Unfettered. And little Red." His eyes burned when they settled on Aika, and Vyse bared his teeth when his Valkyrie shivered in clear disgust. "I heard Blondie's dead. Shame, that, but it makes my job easier."

"Yeah." Vyse loosened his swords in his scabbards, not drawing them out right away. "As I recall, the last time you and I faced off, Vigoro, it didn't end too well for you."

"Ship to ship. You had the bigger gun." Vigoro glared at him. "But you're not on the Delphinus now, boy, and I've got a bit of a grudge after what you did to the Draco. And this time?" Vigoro grinned again, feral and murderous. "This time, I've got the biggest gun."

He snapped his swivel gun up just as fast as Vyse had feared. The others scattered, and Vyse snapped his cutlasses out and rolled to the side. Vigoro fired, overwhelming the moaning from the Great Vortex.

An open platform meant for carrying heavy loads of machinery and material, left more than enough of an area for a three-on-one battle. That contributed to some of their problems in putting Vigoro down. The extra room played to Vigoro's advantage giving him space to maneuver and keep blasting away, denying Vyse the chance to close into melee range unless he was willing to get his face blasted off.

It was different than fighting Ramirez had been. It was different than how Galcian had fought. Vigoro didn't bother with flourishes or bursts of speed. He moved with slow and steady intent, his cannon blazing and peppering them with shots from an oversized magazine that fed into it when he wasn't loosing concentrated bursts of his own spiritual energy. Vigoro seemed fully confident that he'd be walking out of this fight alive, and it showed.

Adrenaline and desperation, son, can be powerful motivators. There's been many a time that Briggs and I, and the others, found ourselves in a pinch that we only survived by the skin of our teeth because we were just a little bit faster than our enemies. A little bit more focused. I've seen sailors and soldiers who lost themselves in the tide of battle fury, who stopped tracking their surroundings and paid for it. A fight is like a storm, Vyse. Don't ever lose track of it. Don't ever let the storm do the flying for you.

Vigoro had launched another salvo of energy-fed mortarbursts at them all, and Vyse took a moment to judge where they'd hit before he moved. Aika cartwheeled away from her explosion, Gilder threw his arms and pistols up in front of his face and made a hasty step to the side and back.

Vyse didn't dodge and he didn't step out of the way. He lunged as the mortarburst detonated at his heels and let the force of the energy's blast wave push him ahead even faster, his swords raised and at the ready. Vigoro hadn't been expecting him to advance after that attack. It showed in his wide eyes as he cocked his cannon with another standard shell.

There wasn't the time for words. Fights rarely allowed for them, not against a truly skilled opponent like a blooded Valuan admiral. Vyse poured strength into the edges of his blades to sharpen them and took one last step before leaping for a lethal stroke.

Vigoro responded by slipping his cannon into a one-handed grip and swinging it out at Vyse. The thick, reinforced metal squealed as the first Bluheim-forged cutlass gouged into the side, but it held. The second blade Vyse swung after it never came close. Vigoro's gloved fist slammed into the side of his jaw and sent him flying back before the strike could hit, bouncing him off of the deck plating. Vyse's body screamed at him when he came to rest, and he blinked to try and clear the stars from his eyes.

"Get up!" Aika hissed at him as she dashed by to rush Vigoro, and a Sacres crystal hit the lift and clattered next to his swords. Vyse smashed his fist down on it and let the mid-grade healing spell flow into him. His ears were still ringing a little but his jaw didn't feel like it was broken. He picked up his swords, rolling away from his position for good measure. A good thing, considering that a Pyri grenade came tumbling his way and would have gone off in his face if he hadn't. The steady pop-pop staccato of Gilder's pistols kept the beat as he came back up to his feet and got his bearings. Vigoro was snarling openly and bleeding from a graze across his forehead, and his pompadour had a chunk sliced off of it. Aika's handiwork, no doubt.

"Enough!" Vigoro yelled, and swung his damaged cannon around towards Aika's face. She leapt clear of him and opened up a firing line for Gilder to blast away with his pistols, but the gunslinger was caught off guard when the magazine slotted into the disabled cannon's underside suddenly detached as Vigoro swung the weapon around. The magazine flew through the air and struck the air pirate in the forehead with a heavy crack. Gilder slumped to one knee swearing up a storm as he tried to steady his vision, and Vigoro used the opportunity to wheel on Aika. It was all Vyse could do to summon a spectral figure to block the lethal, heavy-handed blow, and when the defensive aura that resembled a skeletal air pirate countered, Vigoro sacrificed what was left of his cannon to block the sickle of power.

He had one hand wrapped around Aika's throat a second later and slammed her down onto the deck plating with brutal force that sent her boomerang scattering away from her, pinning her legs with his knees and leaning over her. While she choked and writhed, Vigoro's stormy eyes snapped up and took in the sight of Vyse.

"Take another step and I'll break her neck, hero." Vigoro warned him. Vyse froze, and Vigoro smirked. "I'd heard that blondie knew how to bring people back from the dead. Too bad she's dead now, or that threat wouldn't hold water, would it?"

"Maybe I just don't want Aika to experience dying again. Did you think of that?" Vyse snapped out.

Vigoro hummed. "Nah. I think you're bluffing me, Vyse. That's your whole deal, isn't it? I remember how you fought us in Yafutoma. I read up on the after-action reports of your escape while I was...recuperating." His grin darkened into a murderous scowl far too easily after that. "No. You're weak, and you only strike when you have the element of surprise. But look around." He gestured. "No place for reinforcements to come charging in, is there? No princes to turn traitor and hand you a ship you don't deserve. No, you don't even have your bitch Silvite here, and Red…"

She must have been whiting out, but Aika somehow found the strength to aim a punch straight at Vigoro's groin. The sound of her hand crunching against metal had Vyse flinching. Vigoro stopped talking and blinked a couple of times before he raised Aika's head up and slammed it down against the lift again.

"Nice try, Red. But that trick doesn't work anymore, even if I wasn't wearing a tackle covering." Vyse bared his teeth when Vigoro leaned down over his dazed lover and breathed on her face. "You took care of that with your little barbecue. I figure I ought to pay you back for that." Vigoro looked up at Vyse again and grinned. "What do you think? Have my fun with her before I kill her, or after?"

"You bastard." Vyse hissed.

"Heard that one before." Vigoro rolled his eyes. He punched Aika in the face for good measure, then rolled off of her and scooped up her boomerang when Gilder fired right where his head had been. "Wow, get a load of the temper on this guy! You really ought to do a better job picking your friends, Mr. Blue Rogue!" Vigoro didn't wield Aika's weapon with anywhere near the level of skill or grace that she always did, but given that he'd taken his busted cannon and made a bludgeon out of it, he didn't need it. "You keep picking the wrong ones, they're going to end up dead!"

Don't let the storm do the flying for you, his father's words of warning skated across his brain. Then he heard Aika let out a pained groan as Vigoro sneered after his taunt, hefting her weapon like he had a right to it.

Screw it. Vigoro wanted to play it hard?

He'd play it hard.

It wasn't his best fight by any stretch of the imagination. Vigoro was an animal out to slake his bloodlust. He was just as powerful as Galcian, but he was slower and less refined with it once they were finally locked in melee. Vyse was keeping up with him, for the moment at least. But Vigoro's ferocity kept him on the defensive more than he'd like, and they were moving too fast and dancing around each other too much for Gilder to get a clean shot. Vigoro knew it, too. He was controlling the field.

Vigoro pressed Vyse backwards. Step after step until his shoulders and knees were shoved into the safety chains that ringed the platform still chunking sedately down the rails with nothing but empty sky and a long fall into darkness and killing heat on the other side. Vyse found himself breathing hard and fast as he strained against the pressure of Vigoro bearing down on him, using both of his cutlasses to resist the stronger man. It wasn't enough. The edge of Aika's boomerang, gleaming green from the moonstone focus in the hilt, came closer and closer to his neck.

"You know, I have to say I'm a little disappointed." Vigoro huffed, his face already red and turning purple as he pushed and pushed. "You're the most wanted man on Valua's anti-piracy bounty board. Four stars. Not even your old man ever managed that. And you know, you've got a reputation. Pisses the hell out of me. They say that you fly through hurricanes and spit bullets out of your teeth. That you're the second coming of Daccat and that you've never lost a fight. But you and me, boy, we know better. You're no great hero. You're not the sort to stand toe to toe with the best of us and win. You're just a kid playing with the adults and thinking you know what's right. If you had a brain in your head you would've joined up with us at the first chance. Power attracts power. But no, you -" A gunshot rang out and Vigoro grunted and flinched, turning his head around and glaring at Gilder, who'd steadied himself enough to bury a slug into the admiral's body. Somewhere not immediately fatal, Vyse cringed; probably a muscle shot. "Do you mind, I'm trying to have a conversation here!" Vigoro screamed, and a wave of something shimmering just out of visible light emanated from him and slammed into Gilder. The air pirate in the red duster let out a scream and dropped his guns with a clatter as he pressed his hands against his temples. Vyse tried to shove out of the hold, but Vigoro huffed and turned his full attention back on Vyse again, easily resuming that inevitable pressure. "No class, you pirates. No class at all. Let me tell you what's going to happen, boy. I'm going to cut your throat open until you're drowning in your own blood. Then I'm going to go rip that gunfighter's arms off and skin him so I can wear him like a coat. And as for your best girl back there?" He laughed, stinking of cheap grain alcohol, halitosis and tobacco smoke. Moons, his breath was as foul as his decayed mind. "Galcian said as long as I give him your body, that hers is mine. And I have so many plans…"

There were many kinds of evil that Vyse had fought against. Evil in the aggregate in the form of the Empire. Evil on a purely mental level, in the shape of the Elders and their Plan. The cruel and steamrolling evil of Galcian's ambitions that would see the world pushed to wrack and ruin. But Vigoro? Vigoro was a baser form of evil. One cruel for the sake of cruelty, depraved for depravity's celebration. Vyse felt disgust and revulsion on a visceral level that surpassed anything, and…

He really should have killed Vigoro back in the Grand Fortress after he pulled Aika off of his unconscious, neutered body. When Gilder had been sicking up everything in his stomach and the scent of charred flesh had still lingered in the air, there'd been more than enough time. It just hadn't seemed as important as rushing to Aika's side, holding her, calming her down, letting her know that nothing had changed between them no matter what had happened.

The edge of Aika's boomerang was closer now, too close. He could feel it bite into his throat, watched as Vigoro held it there and smiled.

"You know, I don't need all of you to prove that you're dead." Vigoro mused. "Maybe I'll take your head off, stupid hat and all, and just pitch your body over the side to rot in the Abyss."

"You first." Aika's raspy voice carried on the wind, and Vigoro blinked before a flash of silver light struck the brawny admiral from behind. The noise Vigoro made was odd, like someone had sucked all the air out of him and he'd tried to scream. The second thing Vyse noticed was that the man had gone very still, and he was finally able to shove the edge of Aika's weapon away from his throat. Stowing his blades, he grabbed for Vigoro's neck and squeezed. A high, irregular pulse beat against his hands. Vigoro wheezed and tried to push him off, but all of his impressive strength seemed to be failing him.

"This isn't yours." Vyse tore Aika's boomerang out of the blackguard's hand with prejudice and hooked the handle onto his belt. It gave him the time to look over and see Gilder pulling himself out of his pained mental state. Aika was rolled onto her stomach with dazed eyes and her outstretched hand gleamed a cold silver. She must have tried for an Eterni spell, maybe an Eternes. And it had definitely done something to Vigoro, because the man had a thready heartbeat, no strength, and no voice.

"And neither is she." Vyse told Vigoro, grunting as he hefted the man's impressive muscular bulk up off of the platform. It strained his arms, but damn if deadlifting the miserable sack of garbage didn't feel good. "I'd tell you to go to hell, but...I think you'd have made it there without my help."

Vigoro's eyes glazed over. His wheezing breaths slowed, his enfeebled hands slipped off of Vyse's arm and fell slack at his waist. Vyse brought up his other aching arm and spun them around, shoving Vigoro against the same safety chains that the man had pinned him against earlier, ignoring the burning sensation at his throat from his wound.

"Tell De Loco I said hi." Vyse finished coldly, and flipped Vigoro over the side. Vigoro's limbs folded and flopped in the wind as he tumbled down, down, down towards the abyss. Vyse watched him fall until he was a speck against the clouds, and spared time for one final thought for the utter bastard. Would he still be alive when he hit the mud at the bottom of the world, or was he already dead?

He shook it off and moved over to Aika's side, going into a sliding kneel so he could turn her over and prop her against his chest. "Aika? Love, you okay?"

"Been better." She forced the words out, and he saw her damaged hand spasm as she tried to keep it open. "What is with assholes and head injuries?" Aika slurred.

"You dizzy?"

"I'm gonna throw up if you don't fix this."

"I'm fine too, thanks for asking." Gilder drawled. Vyse flipped him a rude gesture without looking back at had a small pile of Sacrum crystals tucked away and he cracked one open, suffusing the three of them with its healing light and breathing a little easier. The burning on his neck faded as well and when he checked it, he felt smooth skin underneath and had only a trickle of blood on his fingertips.

"Still need to throw up?" Vyse asked Aika, holding her gently.

"Did you kill him?" Aika sighed, ignoring the question and choosing to rest against him. Vyse hummed a noncommittal response.

"Think you did." He told her.

Aika snorted. "Nah. I tried to do something, but I'm sure I saw him moving after the spell hit."

"Maybe you didn't kill him in one blow, but he was dying." Vyse corrected her. "I think it just took a bit longer. His body was shutting down on him."

"Great. Fina will be so proud." Aika huffed. "Can't revive someone without suffering a nosebleed. Can only kill someone slowly."

"It's more than I can do." He kissed the top of her head, since he couldn't brush his lips against her eyelids with her goggles on. "You are nothing short of a miracle, love. That you could do that, hurt and dazed as you were…"

Gilder trudged over and gave the both of them an unimpressed stare. "You two forgot all about me, didn't you?"

"You're still alive, aren't you? Still in one piece?" Aika countered.

"Mostly. My head's still ringing a little from his petty little trick, which I shook off myself, thank you very much for nothing."

"Ah, you're fine then." Vyse snorted. "Besides, you don't use your head nearly as often as you should, so Clara will probably be fine with it."

Gilder looked betrayed for a second or so before he chuffed and grinned. "You're such an asshole, Vyse."

"Pirate." Vyse shot back, and winked.

"My Pirate." Aika hummed, and turned half around to lean into him a little more. Vyse gladly welcomed her into his arms.

"Yours. And Fina's." Vyse said, and her hum sounded even happier then. He sighed and looked down the track from Dangral to the smaller island and its waiting elevator, which crept closer by the minute. "We've got a little time before we arrive. Want your boomerang back, Aika?"

"Later." His Valkyrie sighed. "Vigoro's gone, Vyse, and he'll never hurt another woman ever again. Lemme celebrate that in peace, okay?"

"Funny. I just thought you wanted to cuddle more."

"I can do both." She grumped, and punched him lightly in the arm. Vyse laughed weakly, ignored the impulse to rub the sore spot, and gave Gilder a nod when the older air pirate plopped down next to them and started reloading his pistols.

"Yes you can." Vyse whispered, holding Aika like the treasure she was.

The ships of the cordon paid no attention to the lift as it moved closer to their objective, just as Vyse had hoped. There were no guards waiting on the island when the platform finished its transit from Dangral. There were no guards posted around the elevator itself, no additional security measures to keep them from accessing it.

It was too easy, and Vyse wasn't sure what frightened him more. Either Galcian wasn't concerned about his most vital project being infiltrated beyond Dangral itself, or it didn't matter. He pushed his fears down and trudged on, wearing the determination that Aika and Gilder needed. Healing magic had soothed their aches and they'd had some precious minutes of rest once Vigoro was disposed of. What they didn't have was Fina. Or Enrique. Or the Setsu sisters.

They would make do anyways. Blue Rogues always did. It didn't make the ride down any less ominous, especially since the elevator was little more than a hollow shaft with a lift and a single light in the ceiling. It took them down, down, down, and all the while they passed through the howling winds of that thick layer of clouds that blotted out all light, with the cacophony of the occasional flash of lightning to keep them from relaxing.

"I remember the stories you told us about your ill-advised excursion into the Deep Sky." Gilder finally said, just to break up the tension. Vyse had been in a lot of Valuan-made elevators since Fina crashed into their lives, but this was by far the most ominous, outdoing the Moonstone Mountain work camps and the Grand Fortress. "If we get to the bottom of this lift and we have to walk out in the storm to get where we're going, I'm going to be a very unhappy man. I didn't sign up to trudge through gale-force winds when I can't even see."

"I'm pretty sure it won't come to that." Aika reassured their ally. "If I had to guess, what they did was assemble the shaft in sections up on the island and kept lowering it down." She paused and thought about it. "Maybe with a central pillar that they put through the shaft to brace it even more than any exterior strutwork, and they'd need something to ground any lightning strikes."

"Aika, your brain's showing." Vyse smiled.

"Oh, sorry, should I stop?" She snarked at him, a hand on her hip as she eyed him woefully. Vyse couldn't help but chuckle. It felt like it had been forever since he and Aika had been able to participate in some witty banter. Maybe having Gilder around brought it out in them.

It made him miss having Fina there even more. Aika was freer with her emotions and quicker to joke and laugh, but Fina needed, deserved that kind of laughter in her life just as much as they did. He made a silent promise to give her that next time.

"Nah. Don't change a thing, Aika. I happen to like your brain."

"Funny, I thought you liked Fina's beautiful brain."

"I can find more than one brain beautiful!" Vyse argued back, his grin widening. Aika rolled her eyes after a little consideration and tapped a finger on his chest.

"Well. Long as it's just Fina's, and nobody else's."

The opening was too perfect. "I don't know, some of the stuff Lapen's gotten up to -" And Aika pressed a finger to his lips to stop him.

"You want out of the hole, Vyse? Put down the shovel." She remarked, and dropped her hand away.

"Yes, dear." Vyse side-eyed Gilder, who seemed to be struggling with laughing or rolling his eyes at their antics. "Aika?"

"...Yeah?"

"I love you."

"Oh, for fu…" Aika said under her breath and covered her eyes, and Gilder finally snorted.

Outside, the howling winds suddenly cut off, as did the slight rattling of the lift itself. They all turned and looked up a moment before the lift settled to a stop, and then glanced at each other.

"Last stop." Gilder declared, and the lift doors opened to reveal a dark cavern illuminated by glittering lights along metallic silver walls, with a lone path stretching out ahead of them. "Everybody off."

Vyse zoomed his eyepiece's telescopic lens down the path and homed in on the door at the other end. Undoubtedly, Ramirez and Galcian would both be on the other side of it.

"Let's go." He said, and took point.

The length of the pathway must have been a clue to the importance of the chamber beyond. Vyse only realized it once the doors slid open and they ran inside. Galcian and Ramirez were there just as they'd feared and expected, but in the center of the room on an upraised platform were six pillars that surrounded a dull silver orb easily three times the size of a standard smoothbore cannonball, kept locked behind a glowing field of faint blue and silvery light. And on each of the six pillars shone a gleaming light from the Moon Crystal put on top of it. Purple, yellow, blue, red, green, and...Silver. The shard of Silver Moon Crystal that Ramirez had killed Fina to gain.

"I take it Vigoro is dead, then." Galcian surmised, and Vyse made his swords glow even brighter as he nodded. "Hm. Adjustments will need to be made, but you may have saved us some work in the long run." He glanced over to Ramirez, who gave them all a dark glare as his hands busily moved over a console and grunted.

Vyse cocked his head to the side, as he took in the sight of everything. "...Something's wrong." He said, looking between Galcian and Ramirez. "You're not the sort to gloat. Vigoro was, but not you." He accused the Lord Admiral. No, he looked at the setup of the Moon Crystals arrayed around that silver orb and recognized what it was from the flashes of imprinted memory that the Elders had shown them.

That orb in the center was Zelos...Well, the heart of Zelos, anyways. The rest of the Gigas must have been stored somewhere else, but that orb was its core. If it was a matter of simply plunking down the Moon Crystals to unlock Zelos and send Soltis rocketing back out of the depths to its proper place, then Galcian would have done it already. They would have been hours too late. And that meant...

"You haven't been able to break the seal." Vyse said aloud, and his eyes slid over to Aika. She caught on and nodded. There was a chance, they had a chance!

The salt and pepper-bearded Lord Admiral glowered back at Vyse. "Annoying, insightful little pest. No. You've come here to witness my triumph, pirate, and to die."

"Not in my plans." Vyse twirled one of his cutlasses, and crouched to leap forward. Galcian, however, didn't even draw out that oversized cleaver of his. He just looked back and smiled. Waiting.

Vyse caught on a moment before he heard a very familiar beep and saw a red beam of light come up and aim for Aika. A targeting beam.

"SCATTER!" He shouted, and they all did. The opening shot from another Silvite mechanical guardian screamed in and hit the ground, throwing up an explosion that sent them flying even further. Vyse rolled into the maneuver and came up on his feet, turning around in time to see two of the hulking monstrosities, as immaculate as the one that they'd squared off against on the Silver Shrine, come lumbering into the chamber with their gun arms raised up and charging to fire.

Galcian folded his arms and watched. "Your plans are immaterial, next to mine." He declared.

The fight could have gone so much worse for them. Vyse wasn't exactly looking forward to dealing with two of the hulking mechanical defenders at the same time. Sure, there might've been a chance that they could play the two off of each other, lure them with fancy footwork to take aim and then unleash fire on their opposite, but it was going to wear them down. That was the whole point in Galcian getting Ramirez to summon the Guardians, to wear them down so they'd be easy pickings after. Every step of this mission had been a trap they'd forced their way through because they had no alternative, and he cursed it in his head now.

It could have been so much worse, if Aika hadn't tried something entirely unexpected. "Command Override!" The redhead shouted as loud as she could. "Zeta-Delta-Four-Nine-Upsilon!"

The two robots froze up after the string of words and numbers, the glowing light in their oddly shaped heads dimming and dying off as they slipped into slumber. It took Vyse a moment to place the importance of the words Aika had shouted. That was the code Fina had used to disable their attackers up on the Silver Shrine! But why would it work here?

It didn't matter why, the more rational part of himself pointed out. It had, and Ramirez and Galcian were looking at them in matching expressions of incredulity. It made Vyse laugh, because Galcian had the same stupid look on his face that he'd had when the Little Jack had blown the train car in two on his signal, so very long ago.

He wasn't Lord Admiral for nothing though. Aika screamed and fired a cyclonic firestorm towards the pair, and Galcian finally drew his weapon and deflected the cylindrical burst away with a powerful roar and a ferocious slash that made the air move.

"Finish it, Ramirez!" He ordered, and dove into their midst.

Galcian was used to fighting with the upper hand, with every move planned out. Vyse got that impression after five seconds of the man fighting the three of them, and unlike in the cramped corridors of Dangral, here they had room to spread out and keep the Lord Admiral fully engaged. This was not a fight that Galcian had expected to have, and his movements, while no less powerful, seemed more frantic than they'd been before.

Maybe to make up for his poor showing earlier with Vigoro, Gilder was ferocious in laying down covering fire. Aika pinned Galcian down from the other side with terrifying explosions of red magic and her own aura-infused blasts, and Vyse dueled against his much more distracted opponent.

"Anytime now, Ramirez!" Galcian snapped out, hissing as he turned to take one of Gilder's bullets against his armor and got his leg scorched for his trouble. Then Vyse was up in the air with one cutlass raised high for a devastating overhead swing, the other kept low to stab out quickly. Galcian caught the downward slash on the edge of his enormous sword and swung the full weight of it to throw Vyse back and spare him the stab which just missed connecting. While Vyse fell back, Aika threw up a curtain of flames around the Lord Admiral that kept him from pursuing on his advantage. "Shut it down! Like they did!"

"I can't!" Ramirez yelled back angrily. "The lockout on Zelos is unique, it won't respond to that shutdown command!"

"How?!" Galcian demanded, hurling a crescent slash of energy out at Gilder to interrupt his next shot. "How in blazes did you pirate gutter trash know how to…" The impact of sword on sword made the man's jaw click shut, and his eyes burned in realization. "Fina."

Vyse hissed, dragging his sword down and throwing up a wave of sparks. "You don't get to say her name!"

It was chaos after that if it hadn't been chaos before. Galcian could overpower any of them with ease, but beating him down wasn't the objective. Getting past him was. During one of the lulls where Gilder was firing both pistols with a salvo of concentrated spiritual energy bullets to keep Galcian from doing anything more than defending, Aika managed to get off a Quika spell. Yes, there were De Loco manufactured spell tablets on the black market which caused the same effect, but Vyse had fought under the influence of both, and a standard Quika made him just a hair faster...and didn't have the exhaustive aftereffect.

Under that Quika spell, he and Gilder had Galcian locked down. That gave Aika a precious moment to sprint for the dais where Ramirez was still frantically working to undo the seal that kept Zelos asleep. Efforts which came to a screeching halt when Aika reached for the shard of Silver Moon Crystal that had been stolen from Fina...and was thrown back howling when something from the pedestal shocked her for the effort. But she had managed to dislodge the shard from its perch enough that Galcian and Ramirez panicked. For an unverifiable quantity of panic from the two usually emotionless men.

A positive sounding chirp sounded from the pedestal Ramirez was working at, and he let out a small noise before he drew his blade and rushed them. Aika squawked and fell back to join up with the other two, and Vyse found himself sliding away from Galcian to stop Ramirez from slashing her. She hurled her boomerang in an arc and caught the Lord Admiral off guard, cutting past his armor and making a sizable cut before it clattered to the floor. Galcian let out a grunt in response, teeth bared and grit tightly.

"Sir!" Ramirez shouted, not taking his eyes off of Vyse for a moment. "Get to the platform, I'll cover you!" Galcian did just that, hurling an Electres spell that made the air smoke as it streaked in towards Gilder. Only Aika's timely intercession spared the pirate from severe electrocution, another (thankfully) lightning-quick, magic-blunting bubble shield absorbing the attack without any trouble at all.

The silver sword of Ramirez came flashing in almost faster than Vyse could react, even augmented. It scraped along the side of his torso and left a burning cut before he shoved it away with one of his own cutlasses.

"You won't stop us now! I've come too far and sacrificed too much!" Ramirez was furious. But so was Vyse, when Ramirez started talking about sacrifice.

He'd sacrificed Fina for this mad ambition.

Galcian was up on the platform by then, casting one spell after another and widening the range so that neither Aika nor Gilder could draw a line on him as he fixed the positioning of the Crystal shard Aika had disrupted. "Now, Ramirez!"

Ramirez let out a roar and his eyes flared a brilliant and bone-chilling cold silver. He seemed to blur and disappear and if Vyse hadn't seen him pull this move before, it could've struck him down just like it had on Crescent Island…

...But Vyse spun to the side, moving on instinct alone, and snapped both of his blades up to deflect that silver blade which burned with cold fire. The reaction saved his life.

It didn't save his immaculately crafted, Gigas-infused moonsteel alloy cutlasses. The strike from Ramirez hit with a horrible shriek, and Vyse was sent flying from the force of the impact. He came crashing down beside Aika and Gilder with stars flashing behind his eyes, an ache on his backside and a feeling that his swords were wholly unbalanced. When he blinked enough to see straight, he could see why.

He hadn't let go of the hilts of his cutlasses, and the Gigas moonsteel alloy swords were smoking in his grip. What was left of them, anyways. The bulk of the blades had been cleaved clean through, blackened at the impact point. Vyse stared at them, disbelieving.

They had been Ryu-Kan's finest swords, a masterpiece of craftsmanship and artistry from a Master Swordsmith at the end of his career. They had been forged from the scales and bones of Bluheim, and Ramirez had cut them apart.

By the time Vyse got over the shock, Ramirez had fallen back to the platform. Aika let out a feral scream and hurled an absolutely devastating blast of fire which nearly sucked the air from his lungs, but a shield far too similar to the one over the cockpit of Fina's skyship snapped into existence with glistening blue honeycombs, absorbing the desperate strike without difficulty.

The orb at the center began to hum and glow, pulsing with an inner life.

"Finally." Galcian said, haggard from his injury and the fight and keeping a hand pressed to his wounded shoulder. Gilder roared and Aika screamed as they loosed even more firepower against the barrier surrounding the pedestal, the Moon Crystals, Zelos, and the two bastards who were responsible for so much pain. "It's over, Blue Rogue. Your failure is complete."

Vyse ignored the aches and pains in his body, pushing himself up off of the ground. He clutched his broken swords and glared through hot tears. "You're insane, Galcian."

Galcian huffed as Ramirez tended to his wound. "Insanity was what the Silvites had planned, Vyse. Insanity was what you were unwittingly helping them to do. If you had succeeded, your stubborn aid to Fina would have destroyed the entire world for their ambitions."

"She didn't know!" Aika yelled back at him, though her eyes were on Ramirez. "She didn't know, and you killed her!" Vyse caught a momentary flinch, a spot of guilt from Ramirez, but it was dismissed all too quickly as he cleaned the Lord Admiral's wound and began to wrap it. Galcian was unfazed in the face of Aika's pain.

"Sacrifices often need to be made for the greater good." He stated. "I don't want to destroy the world. Merely to rule it, with the true covenant of strength. What is the world of Arcadia, but a messy pile of borders and squabbling factions? Better to do away with them completely and have the whole of it answering to just one authority." That smug, superior smile of his finally came back. "My. Authority. I have always despised you Blue Rogues. Fighting for your freedoms, your independence. Your right to continue suffering in the dirt. It showed a spectacular lack of vision. You want peace? I will bring you peace. I will bring all of Arcadia the Pax Galcianis, and rule by the divine right of True Strength. I will end suffering and conflict, and all the world will bow to me and to my successor, in the reverence that the weak should have for the strong." His smile darkened. "They will bow, or they will perish. Now, Ramirez."

Ramirez finished bandaging Galcian's wound and stepped back. "The seal is broken and Zelos is awake, my lord. It will respond to your command."

"Very well. Let's give the world a demonstration of the wisdom in surrender, shall we?" Galcian reached his undamaged arm out and touched the surface of Zelos' silver orb. "Zelos! Heed my words and carry out my will! Raise Soltis back to its rightful place in the skies of Arcadia!"

The heart of Zelos chimed, and the platform began to rise up, taking Ramirez and Galcian away from them to be sequestered deeper within Soltis.

Everything began to rumble, and Vyse swore as he looked around.

"What do we do now, Vyse?" Gilder asked him worriedly.

"We have to get out of here." Vyse said through a dry mouth. Already the shaking was terrible. The air down here was stale to begin with, unfiltered. If Soltis began to rise up, the elevator would be destroyed, they would be exposed to the elements.

If the storm that formed the barrier between the Lower and Deep Sky didn't kill them, the debris caused by Soltis rising from the depths collapsing around them would.

He stowed what remained of his swords and tugged on Aika's arm, stopping her from slashing at the still rising pillar with her boomerang. "We have to go now."

The ride back up the elevator from Soltis to the world above was terrifying. It shook almost the entire time and the storm seemed worse. When it came to a stop and the doors opened to reveal the interior of the small complex built to house the top of the shaft, the three of them spilled out of it and ran for the platform that would take them back to Dangral.

"I remember how big Soltis was in that vision we saw up on the Shrine." Gilder shuddered, punching the start button as soon as Vyse had slammed the security gate shut. It blared the same three warning notes and started up with a grind of metal on metal before the lubrication worked back into the gears again. "If it's coming up here, it's going to wipe out this island completely!"

They weren't the only ones who were making a run for it, Vyse realized. The shaking and rumbling that they'd felt during the ride up was still present - growing worse, if anything. There were flashes of lightning flying up out of the cloudbanks around the Vortex, for Moon's sake. That must have been more than enough incentive for the Valuan ships which had formed the cordon to decide that away from here was a much better place to be.

"If it takes out the island it's going to take out this lift!" Aika shouted over the ominous thundering coming from the clouds beneath them. "The island floats, but all this steel's nothing but dead weight!"

"I don't think this thing goes any faster than it is right now." Gilder muttered, checking over the control board for the cargo lift and making a face. "Looks like it has an on and an off...no speed controls."

Vyse looked over his shoulder at what they were leaving behind them and shivered. The distance they'd put between them and the island gave him a clear view of the elevator that dropped down through the clouds.

He saw it start to tremble and flex and shake. "Shit."

He saw the pieces of it separate and go falling into the Abyss. "SHIT."

And then he felt their platform come to a grinding halt.

"Fuck!" Gilder pounded the console. "We've lost all power!"

"The island over Soltis is destabilizing." Vyse said the words and looked ahead of them, Dangral still half a lunaleague in the distance and gleaming with shining floodlights. Ships that had been docked with it were now detaching and flying away for safer harbor.

Moons, if Soltis came up, would Dangral itself be broken apart when the continent rose? No. Don't think about that. Just think about surviving. How?

"We stay here, we die!" Vyse shouted, terrified at how the shaking of a lost land reviving from the hellscape below sounded in time with the thundering beat of his heart. "We need to run for it!"

Only one way to go. Vyse charged and leapt over the safety rail, coming to a shaky landing on the first of the rails that the now powerless lift had used as guide and support. He hissed as his feet almost gave out on him, but he crouched and dug his palm into the side of the I-frame until he almost felt it cut into his palm. Close. Vertigo could so easily take hold here. At least on an airship there were carabiner's lanyards and anchor points for the dangerous work and rails for casual movement on the decks. One wrong move here and it wouldn't matter that Soltis was coming up from below, he'd be dead before it became relevant.

That thought got a slightly hysterical laugh out of him he suppressed after two bleats, and then he turned around and backed a few paces to help Aika stick her landing. He needn't have bothered, she made the jump down far more gracefully than he had. At least he could help with Gilder. The older man stumbled and latched on to his arm trembling like a leaf until Vyse forced him up on his feet.

They ran for their lives and it still wasn't enough. The shaking and shuddering from the island they'd left behind them carried through the rails, and they were forced to slow from a terrified dash to a half-crouching crawl that made his legs burn and his head sweat from the effort. Then they heard a noise coming from behind them that had all three spinning in dread, worsened when sight gave credence to what their ears reported. The island which once held the elevator was collapsing.

And as it fell, so too did the gantry bars of the cargo lift, which bent down at first and then with a shriek of metal - began to tear apart.

"Oh, fuck." Aika whispered. It was all Vyse could think of as well. That, and…

"We're going to die." Gilder said, flat and resigned. Vyse said nothing, he just stood as the metal of the I-Beam shuddered and shook and took Aika's hand in his own. She looked at him and he found the strength to smile. If this was the end…

Well. They would go out the same way they started this mess. Together.

"What about Fina?" Aika asked him, and Vyse squeezed her fingers.

"She's a Blue Rogue. She'll survive. She'll keep the rest of them together." There were so many more things that he wanted to say, but he couldn't drum up the energy to say them. All the things he'd wished for, the life he'd wanted with Aika and Fina were nothing but ashes now as they waited for gravity to drop them to their deaths. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against hers. "Don't look, Aika. Just stay with me."

That was what she did as the seconds ticked by. She held onto him as they tried to block the rest of the world out, the two of them trying to make a world in each other's arms that nothing else could touch. They were good at it, almost too good. He didn't hear a thing until Gilder was shouting at them.

"No time to die now, kids! Cavalry's here, eyes open!" Vyse snapped his eyelids up and looked to where Gilder was pointing, and saw a miracle coming towards them with a shimmering trail of light flecks in its wake. Fina's skyship was skimming along the tracks with Fina looking panicked and more beautiful than ever. The wind whipped her blue headscarf and her blond hair back, giving her a wild and fierce look wholly unlike the grace she'd always held when wearing that Silvite dress. Fina pulled the ship to the side and slightly below their spot on the rail turning her blue eyes on them.

"Get in!" She shouted at them over the din of destruction and the flaring of lightning all around them.

"Fina, I fucking love you!" Aika laughed and cried at the same time.

"Fucking love me later, get in NOW!" The former Silvite shouted back, and Aika just laughed even harder. Gilder scrambled in first, Vyse helped Aika in next. He stumbled a little as the railing two hundred yards away fell into the abyss, felt himself starting to slide, and heard both of his loves scream his name. It shook him out of his momentary shock and he pushed off of the I-Beam in the most ill-timed jump he'd ever done, barely clearing the edge. His shin banged into the top of the cockpit's wall and dumped him gracelessly into Aika's lap, and they crashed awkwardly into the compartment. Fina didn't waste a moment. By the time Gilder helped him back up onto his feet, the bubble shield around the cockpit had snapped back into place and they were flying west and slightly upwards as fast as she dared.

"Fina, how did you -" Vyse started to ask. She shook her head and motioned to the array of buttons and dials and readouts at the helm.

"They sounded a general evacuation order for all Valuan personnel as soon as the first tremors hit. The Armada's pulling back to a 'safe distance' until…" She sounded so haggard, and she slumped. "Gilder, take the helm."

"On it." The air pirate switched places with her, and Fina slipped into Vyse's arms.

"I thought I'd lost you both." She whispered. Vyse wanted to boast, but his heart was still thundering too hard. She almost had. "You couldn't stop them?"

Vyse hummed as Aika slid into place to hug Fina, and used the respite to draw out one of his shattered cutlasses. "We tried." Fina gaped at the broken blade, and Vyse tucked it back in place. "They played dirty. So did we. But they had a shield to hide behind, and then there was nothing we could do but run for it."

"Soltis is rising." Fina said, and just saying it hurt her. "We've lost."

"It's not over yet." Vyse vowed. "Blue Rogues never give up, remember? We're still alive. So long as we're still alive, we still have a chance." He took Fina's face in his hands and stared into her beautiful, gleaming blue eyes. "Okay?"

"I didn't lose you." Aika insisted, kissing Fina's cheek and Vyse's hand on it. "Either of you. And you didn't lose us."

Vyse wanted, needed Fina to believe in that. He needed everyone under him to believe that they still had a chance. That they were going to fight on and somehow still win this.

Gilder let out a shout of warning and they all looked to see the sky rifts around the Silver Ocean collapse when an enormous continent that looked more manufactured than naturally formed split the clouds. It narrowly avoided striking Dangral on its ascent. As they all stared and watched Soltis retake its place in the world of light, Vyse found it very hard to believe in a victory. At a distance, he could make out the pillars of the outer perimeter of Soltis, gleaming silver spires shorter than the one jutting up from the center of the continent. He saw Shrine Island, long a site of mystery and wonder, hover right where it had always been and slip seamlessly into the jagged hole on one side of the lost continent.

Soltis had risen, and above it hung a massive silver sphere easily the size of the Delphinus. Zelos, the Silver Gigas. As it took flight away from the resurrected landmass, a bubble shield that resembled the one over the skyship's cockpit manifested into being over the whole of the continent, protecting it from attack.

Zelos turned around, its one baleful eye glowing brightly, and Vyse choked. So did Fina, and her legs gave out on her as she gasped for air and pressed a clenched fist over her heart.

"Something's wrong. I...I can feel…" Fina said brokenly, letting out a pained whimper as her eyes glazed over. Vyse looked between her and Zelos, wondering why she was reacting like that. He could see with his own eyes what Zelos was doing, but why would it affect her?

"It's going to fire." He uttered. Oh, Moons. If Galcian had it fire on the silver moon, the madman could destroy all of Windmill Island on a whim. It could devastate the whole of the untamed wildlands in the region, annihilate every uncolonized island who had refused to bend the knee to Valua's imperial ambitions and its economic stranglehold.

But the silver Gigas didn't fire on the silver moon. As the four of them watched (Fina screaming in pain, Aika holding her up and shouting her name, Gilder swearing, Vyse too stunned to utter a sound), Zelos fired a beam up and away from Arcadia and struck at a distant moon just barely visible on the horizon from their position.

It fired on the yellow moon.

And a minute later, the first of the resurgent Rains of Destruction began to fall on the land that hung beneath it, an unseen cataclysm in the distance.

"He's killing his own people!" Aika shrieked. "That fucking bastard!"

"Moons save us." Fina whispered, slumped bonelessly against Aika and breathing normally again. "Enrique…"

Vyse's eyes stung with tears of sorrow and helplessness. Maybe he should have felt rage instead, but he was so empty.

Galcian had said he would give the world a demonstration of the wisdom in surrender.

He'd already moved against Valua before, lining up a cadre of loyalists willing to secede from the authority of the Empress to join in his madness. This was just finishing the job, and taking out the greatest threat to his ambition in one move.

Vyse could see the cold political calculus in it. Surrender or die. Become a vassal or perish like Valua, blasted to rubble with its survivors struggling to survive in the ruins.

He and his lovers and their friends, all of the Blue Rogues...they'd done so much over the past year. They had saved Ixa'taka and Yafutoma. They had taken out De Loco. They had killed Vigoro. They had struck fear into the hearts of Valua's leadership, and he'd risen to rank four stars on their bounty board.

None of it meant a thing. Not now. Not with Soltis risen. Zelos freed.

The Rains of Destruction had come again and the world's end was at hand.

"What do we do?" Gilder asked. Vyse blinked and realized the man had been speaking to him. "Vyse, what do we do?" Fina and Aika looked to him as well, searching his face for the answer. For reassurance.

For the things he no longer had himself. He was falling apart and he couldn't afford to. Not now. His wives needed him. His crew needed him. Tears burned in his eyes and there was a lump in his throat that he couldn't swallow back, no matter how hard he tried.

Vyse pulled Aika and Fina against him and sank to the floor of the cockpit, pressing his back against the cold metal of its inner wall. He felt as broken as his swords. What did he have left to give them? Any of them?

"Get us out of here." He whispered. Gilder took it as an order, but it had been a plea.

They fled for their lives away from Galcian's reforming Armada, Zelos and the continent it protected.

Over the horizon, Valua burned.