Chapter 20: Man Vs. Machina

By the time the Zanarkand army made it down the steep slopes on the other side of the mountains into the flat grassland basin, night was creeping in around them. Troop commanders decided it was best to rest before attempting to cross the wide-open plains to face off against Bevelle. Their troops had not eaten or slept well since the attack, but to delay too long before a counterattack would allow Bevelle to do it again. Campfires were summoned on piles of stone, and select members from each troop were sent to hunt wildlife that prowled the region. Zen volunteered for that effort, while Shuyin and Lenne rested.

Meanwhile, the captains opened crates of emergency rations that had been collected from storage before they left Zanarkand and began passing them out among their units. "Good thing Yevon thought to stash emergency food supplies with the ground forces machina." Chyuno, the captain of Lenne's warrior unit, commented as he offered her a packet.

Lenne opened the plastic bag and sniffed it.

"I've had this before. My old man used to pack it for camping trips. Never had to eat it cold, though." Shuyin squished his bag to mix the ingredients better and poured some into his mouth.

Lenne passed her bag to him. "Then, you can have mine."

He stopped chewing and passed it right back to her. "You have to eat something. I don't want you passing out on me just because you're a picky eater."

"I'm not a picky eater."

He chuckled as if that was the most absurd statement she ever made. Eating more from his own rations, he stretched out his legs, crossing one ankle over the other.

"He's right," Chyuno agreed. "We all need to eat to keep up our strength. Please at least try it, Lady Lenne. Our troops don't stand a chance if you're not strong enough to fortify them tomorrow."

As the troop leader left a third pack for their ronso friend and went to the next unit, Lenne set her food packet aside and stretched out, resting her head on Shuyin's lap. She watched quietly as he ate and noticed he was watching Yunalesca's bird-like aeon sitting by itself a short distance away.

Ever since meeting Lenne's aeons, Shuyin had become fascinated by the things. "Ne, Lenne. Do you think that aeon is stronger than the ones you had?" He finished his mouthful and sipped some bottled water that also came from the emergency rations.

Lenne saddened even more at the mention of her lost aeons. "I'm trying not to think."

"Thinking about how much fun we had training might help you smile. Remember that first time when Ryuo pushed me overboard? Or what about that time—"

"I don't feel like smiling anymore."

He set down his bottle to draw her hair away from her neck and shoulders. "I know it doesn't feel like there's anything worth smiling about right now, but going into this feeling discouraged won't help."

"I know." She interlocked her fingers over and under his knee. "That's why I need you to keep smiling, even if I don't. It's one of the reasons I wanted you to be my guardian, remember?"

"Well, maybe I don't feel like smiling either." Shuyin moved his ankles back and forth lightly, jostling her head. "You're still not eating."

"I'm not hungry."

"Liar. Your stomach growled louder than mine coming down that mountain pass." He rocked his ankles to jostle her head again and picked up the bag of pre-cooked food, touching it to her lips and making "nom-nom" sounds, just to annoy her.

The corner of Lenne's mouth reluctantly curled at his foolishness until a small laugh escaped. Finally, she sat up and grabbed the bag from him. "You are such a pest. I'll need water if you expect me to choke this down."

Smirking at his victory, he passed her a water bottle. When he finished his own meal, he dropped his trash into the collective pile. Then, he walked to the aeon and stretched a cautious hand to greet it. "Don't bite me. Just trying to say hello."

Valefor sniffed his hand, then stood her full height to tower above him before lowering her neck to his eye level.

Shuyin smiled at the gentle nature of the creature and stroked its feathers. "Too bad you weren't around earlier to join my training. I'll bet you've got some interesting moves."

Lenne shook her head, amused. He was like a boy trying to befriend a stray dog. Standing, she deposited her trash and joined them. "She likes you."

"She?" Shuyin backed up and glanced askance at the creature. "Nh … how can you tell?"

Valefor shook her neck and stomped, talons digging into the ground at the insult.

He quickly shielded himself and backed away from a possible attack. "Nevermind. That was enough to erase any doubts."

Lenne chuckled. "Remember, she can understand you, even if you can't understand her. She's not an animal. She was human once."

Shuyin paused midway between reaching to stroke her feathers again, then withdrew his hand. "So, she's … resurrected? Kinda?"

"I'd say it's more of a reincarnation since her body manifested differently."

"But she's really real."

"Well, as real as any spiritual manifestation can be. The magic that creates an aeon's body truly does simulate flesh and bone while present in the material plane. She feels hunger, pain, and everything else we do. But, as you know, from training with them, their illusion dispels, and their spirits are banished back into the Farplane if they die in reality."

"But you can summon them again. So, if they're basically immortal, why didn't the aeons in the water garden survive?"

"Well, technically, all spirits on Spira are immortal, but most stay in the Farplane once they are sent. Aeons return when summoners invoke the magical seals placed on the tombs of their Fayth. The only way to truly destroy an aeon is to destroy its Fayth. And that's exactly what Bevelle did when they hit the water gardens."

"There were tombs in the water gardens?" He was mildly appalled by that thought.

"There have always been tombs in the water beneath Zanarkand. That's why we had so many problems with fiends before Yevon taught us the Rites of the Sending. That's why … " Lenne saddened, sighed, and slipped an arm around his waist. "Nevermind. We should try to sleep. Chyuno says we need to move before day breaks tomorrow morning." She drew him back to their campfire as Valefor whistled a goodnight.

Shuyin grew quiet.

Lenne could guess what he was thinking. His mother was buried at sea. Koji was lost there, too. So was his father. How many more souls had met their end in those depths? How many more spirits haunted the Zanarkand shores now that Bevelle had destroyed the city?

Zen returned from an unsuccessful hunt—too many people scaring off the prey. He had already eaten his rations packet and extinguished their fire. Now he was reclining in the grass. Both Lenne and Shuyin copied his position, but then Lenne rolled toward Shuyin, placing an ear on his chest to listen to his heart. A cool breeze swept over the plains, and crickets in the field chirped to one another, but sleep remained elusive.

))((

The noise started as a low whistle, then broadened into a steady engine rush. Shuyin woke from a troubled dream and supported himself on one elbow as he scanned the pitch dark wilderness for the source of the odd sound. It took him a moment to recognize what it was, but seconds later, he was on his feet frantically tugging at Lenne and Zen. "Get up! Get up!"

Everyone else in the camp seemed to wake about the same time, but realized too late they were being ambushed. Red and white lights rose from behind the cliffs on the other side of the grasslands, clods of dirt flew into their faces, and the ground shook with explosions as the Bevelle warships rained missiles down on them.

Lenne's troops tried to cover their heads and duck for cover behind their heavy machina, but the summoner started to panic.

"Stay calm and cast your magic!" Shuyin coached above the thundering bombs, though he fought the urge to flee as well. "We all need shields!"

Recollecting her composure, Lenne summoned her rod and began casting shield spells over each of the warriors in her unit as they hurried to defensive positions. Shuyin drew his sword, and Zen took up his lance, both flanking Lenne so nothing would interfere with her casting.

Other than sparks of magic, Shuyin could barely see what else was happening, but he heard the clattering engines of large machina starting up. Within minutes, Zanarkand's army was returning fire. The explosions were almost deafening and brought back fresh memories of the blitzball stadium under attack.

Valefor rose into the air and cast powerful sonic waves at the warships, rattling them until they began dropping parts. Then, she flew straight at them, driving one warship into the cliffs, and another onto the ground. The aeon alternated between physical and magical attacks, but since her attacks were the strongest ones out there, she soon became the primary target.

Shuyin was thrown when a magical lightning bolt jolted the ground with a blinding flash. "Damn it! I can't see anything but spots!" He reached toward Lenne to see if she was okay. She and the warrior she had been casting a shield on were bowled over by the airstrike, as was Zen, but no one seemed to be in distress. As his vision cleared, Shuyin saw that no one was injured, but their ally in the sky was beginning to shimmer and fade. "Lenne! We can't afford to lose the aeon!"

Back on her feet, the summoner began casting cure spells on the bird-like creature. Other summoners must have noticed Valefor was in danger, too, because soon more cure spells could be seen fortifying her flight. The aeon was their most powerful weapon and their only airborne defense. They had to keep her alive.

Valefor grabbed two more warships, one after another, and flung them to the ground where they exploded on impact. She almost managed to bring down another, but her body could take no more punishment from their missiles. And summoners were running low on magic to sustain her. Eventually, the aeon's pyreflies dispersed, but the last warship fled back toward Bevelle rather than hanging around to continue to fight.

An eerie silence followed as the pitch-black sky lightened into smoke-filled dawn. Shuyin stared in speechless dismay at what the sun's first rays revealed. The ground was pitted with giant pockmarks and deep trenches. Bodies that perished in the airstrike lay scattered all around. Warships lay in burning heaps like crumpled pieces of blackened foil. The battlefield wasn't what disturbed him the most, though. "That couldn't possibly have been the bulk of Bevelle's forces," he said to Zen. "And one airship escaped. They know we're here now."

"They knew before ambush," the ronso pointed out.

"Lord Yevon suspected spies among our ranks." Lenne looked distraught and exhausted from all the defensive spells she had been casting. "Someone told Bevelle we were on the way for a counterattack."

"Or, maybe they just have scouts out here somewhere." Shuyin scanned the burning grasslands and cliffs. There didn't seem to be many places to hide in the open plains, though.

"We haven't even broken camp, yet we've lost our aeon, and most of my magic is already consumed," the summoner lamented.

The ronso offered her a vial from his pouch.

Shuyin frowned at the questionable green liquid and its thick vapors. "What is that stuff?"

"Ethers. It restores magical energy." Lenne eagerly drank it down and returned the vial to Zen. "Thank you. I should check on everyone and make sure we have no injuries or losses, but Chyuno should have more ethers in the alchemy supplies. Could you please bring back as many vials as they'll allow you to take? Remind him to give some to our mages as well."

Zen jogged away to find their captain. Lenne scanned the battlefield and hurried to the first warrior she spotted on the ground. Shuyin sheathed his sword and followed, but looked back at the cliffs toward Bevelle. He knew better than to think this was over.

))((

When Zen returned to Lenne and Shuyin, they were already under orders to move out. Zen carried a pouch full of ethers and passed one large handful each to Lenne and Shuyin. Shuyin stuffed his helping into the pockets of his blitz uniform shorts and zipped them shut. Lenne had no pockets, so fit her vials into easy-to-reach places around her clothing and gave Shuyin the remainder when she ran out of places to tuck them. When they were both ready, they jogged back into their assigned formation. A few summoners lingered behind to gather the dead and perform a sending ritual. But when most of the army was lined up behind their largest machina, the push toward Bevelle began again.

Lenne checked over her shoulder and saw something that looked like an enormous fireball heading toward them from the mountain pass. Its incredible size and speed worried her at first, but then she recognized what it was. "Ifrit! Lady Yunalesca must be watching from the mountain! She summoned Ifrit!" she cried aloud to encourage the others.

Those who heard her turned around to see the Kilika aeon bounding over the pitted ground between the crashed warships. It was the morale boost they needed in the wake of the scant victory over the pre-dawn ambush.

))((

The Zanarkand army was barely half-way across the plains when the warriors in the front line spotted Bevelle's regiments heading their way from the main road between the cliffs. On cue, the Zanarkand units fanned out across the plains in a formation that resembled a vast, broken horseshoe with tiers.

Shuyin watched in wide-eyed discontent as machina from Bevelle poured into their midst. Row after row of machina came from the cliffs, but not a single human was among them. "There's too many." He shook his head in disbelief. "There's too many, and they're all machina. How are we supposed to break through that?"

A gasp caught in Lenne's throat as the hoard swept in various directions toward the Zanarkand blockade, picking up speed. "We can't fight that many machina!"

"Cowards!" Zen snarled and hefted his lance. "Bevelle hides behind machina!"

Shuyin drew his father's sword and shielded his face with his arm as the first missiles began hitting the ground, sending chunks of debris flying.

Zanarkand's warriors in the large robot-machina launched a counterattack. Popfly machina and other heavy artillery followed on their heels. The grasslands erupted into full-scale war.

This time, Lenne didn't need to be cajoled out of shock. After casting a shield spell on herself and her guardians first, she ran to her troops and cast their shields. Zen and Shuyin stayed close to her but kept an eye on the ever-encroaching swarm of unmanned machina headed their way.

Bevelle brought out its crawlers and lined them up to spray the oncoming Zanarkand warriors with bullets as they rushed forward. The terrain became an obstacle course of fire, machina, and deeply gouged pits. The fresh air of the grasslands soon smelled of ash, fuel, gunpowder, and ozone as magic and ammunition ripped across the plains between the two armies.

When Lenne finished her first round of protective magic, she immediately began her second—spells that would nullify all magical attacks on her troops. She replenished her magic as necessary, using the ethers vials tucked into her clothing as she ran between them. But each second of preparation allowed Bevelle's on-coming tide to come a little closer, maintaining the initiative.

Shuyin cast a haste spell on her, himself, and the ronso, so they could move more quickly. Then, he faced the cluster of machina closest to them and cast the spell in reverse, slowing their advance to buy more time.

Backing Shuyin's tactics, Zen leaped into the air and came down, thrusting his lance into the ground with a spell that unleashed a small quake between them and the marching machina, before running after his summoner.

Ifrit cast several flaming meteors into Bevelle's biggest weapons, taking them out of commission. All of the larger machina that remained targeted the aeon without mercy. The canine aeon responded by casting a fire spell that lifted an entire section of Bevelle's army off of the ground. Then he ripped a massive chunk of land from the field and threw it at them. If the destroyed fighters had been human, rather than machina, it would have been a sickening amount of lifeless bodies dropping to the ground in the wake of the fiery attack.

Lenne cast a regen spell on herself, drank another vial of ethers, and cast regen spells on her guardians. But as she turned to heal the aeon, Ifrit was struck by an oncoming warship and banished from the material realm. The summoner gasped in horror and whirled toward Gagazet. "Please, Lady Yunalesca! Please send us another aeon! Hurry!"

"The warships are back!" Shuyin grabbed Lenne's arm and started to move her to the back of their unit when a new sound reached his ears. Hundreds of little buzzing and snapping robots broke through Zanarkand's front lines and rushed into melee. One jab from the little mecha-monsters' bayonet attachments and human warriors were run through, chest to back. Others had gun attachments or pitched grenades. "What the—" Shuyin was forced to dodge a strike. Hitting the ground, he kicked the little robot's feet out from under it before thrusting his sword up underneath its circuits. Even then, he had trouble throwing off the electrified machina's shell.

Zen deflected one of the soldier machina's bayonets and cast magic to drain energy from its battery. Then, he quickly cast another spell to scan the mechanism for weaknesses.

As more soldier machina surrounded them, large, dark storm clouds gathered over Gagazet. But this was no natural storm. Within minutes, an electrical charge sent a titan of a unicorn thundering across the plains. Ixion galloped in a blustery wind, rather than on the ground. And as it closed in on the battle, the aeon sent shock waves into each of the warships. It sent another electrical wave into the crawlers before landing on top of one, turning it over, and crushing it beneath its hooves.

Lenne was awed seeing this aeon for the first time, but her awe was short-lived when bullets pierced Shuyin's protective magic.

"Shit!" Grimacing in pain, he clutched the wound. Blood seeped between his fingers and streamed down his arm.

The summoner cast a cure spell to draw out the bullet and close the wound. Then she replenished the blitzball player's shield before rushing to one of her fallen warriors.

Shuyin was no sooner healed than he snapped his sword down to block another attack from one of the annoying, but deadly little machina soldiers.

Zen used his lance to vault over the one targeting him, then punched the spear-head straight into the circuitry surrounding the AI chip. It was an instant kill, but now their summoner was nowhere in sight. The ronso growled in frustration at being attacked by two more of the contraptions before he could sprint away to hunt her down.

A manna ray discharged across what was left of Zanarkand's large-machina line of defense. Explosions ripped along each of the remaining robot unit fuel tanks, setting more of the shrinking ground aflame with black smoke. Ixion was banished.

Lenne shrieked and covered her ears, but then ran to check the bodies scattered on the ground. When Zen defeated the machina that attempted to entangle him, he ran after her.

Shuyin slammed a foot into the machina that obstructed him from joining them. Then, he sprinted toward the tall blue ronso that stood out among the humans and robots.

Lenne focused on healing the worst injuries first. She encouraged the wounded warriors as she helped them get back on their feet. And she enhanced their strength or ability to endure fatigue. But sometimes, she could only shed tears, promising to return and send them when all of this was over. It didn't matter that they weren't in her troop. Troops didn't matter anymore. Helping each other survive became the priority. "I need more ethers!" she begged of her guardians.

Zen handed her one of the vials from his pouch, then turned his back to her and readied his lance.

Shuyin unzipped his pockets and dug out several vials of ethers, passing them to her. As she tucked them around her clothing for easy access again, he noted the dark circles beneath her smoke-irritated eyes. Those magic potions were probably the only thing keeping her going because she appeared to be on the verge of exhaustion again.

More storm clouds gathered, but this time they turned the sky to frost before bursting into ice shards that struck everything from incoming warships to the smallest mechanized soldier. A blue, tattooed woman with long, thick dreadlocks—an ice goddess of sorts—emerged from the ice burst amid the enemy and shrouded a crawler in multiple ice storms. With a snap of her finger, it was utterly destroyed. And yet, more crawlers kept coming. Bevelle had more machina than Zanarkand had soldiers. And Zanarkand's human summoners, mages, guardians, and warriors were beginning to tire.

Taking his eyes off of the ice goddess, Shuyin spun around to see more machina speeding toward them and shook his head at the impossible numbers.

"Shuyin! Cover, Lenne!" Zen shouted in warning, pointing to the smoky sky.

A grenade soared overhead. Casting a slow spell on it, Shuyin grabbed Lenne and ran as fast as he could. When it exploded, he jerked her to the ground and bent over her. His back took the brunt of the fallout, but the grenade had finished off their most immediate machina soldiers. "You okay?" He sat back on his heels and helped her sit up.

She slipped a vial from the armband of her sleeve and used her teeth to pull the cork, swallowing the precious fluid as quickly as she could. Placing both hands on his back, she healed him again, then stood. "Chyuno ..."

"What?" With a wince, Shuyin reached for his dropped sword.

The captain of their warrior unit was running toward them. "We're low on ammo! I need a fast relay back to the mountain pass to see if the ronso have any hidden stores! Are blitzball players as fast on land as they are in water?" he breathlessly asked.

"Forget it, man! I'm not leaving my summoner!" Shuyin answered over the gunfire and explosions.

"Waste of time and guardian!" Zen informed the captain. "Ronso not have ammunition human machina use!"

Chyuno looked pushed beyond the brink of despair as he pressed a hand to his weary forehead and paced. "Then, is it possible for Lady Yunalesca to send us a batch of aeons, rather than one-at-a-time?" he asked of Lenne. "The ice queen is starting to weaken, and we really need something that packs an unforgivable punch all at once, or we're not going to make it much longer."

Shuyin checked the position of the sun. Was it already late afternoon? Daylight wouldn't last much longer either, at this rate. He was growing sick of the smell of smoke and burning flesh.

"It's impossible to summon more than one aeon at a time," Lenne answered.

Another manna ray went off banishing Shiva back to the Farplane and destroying another line of Zanarkand's defense. There it was then. They were doomed.

Chyuno didn't tell them that, though. "Well … keep up the good work, then." The discouraged troop leader tried to smile, but then turned around and jogged away.

Behind them, Shuyin saw another aeon coming toward them in a blur. This one was a samurai warrior in colorful robes with an animal companion at his side. The blur flew overhead to land amid the enemy and continued trying to destroy their endless flow of machina. Shuyin had no idea how many machina Bevelle had at their disposal, but even with aeons in every temple, there weren't that many temples on Spira.

A loud whistle caught their attention. "Chyuno!" Lenne cried out in warning and cast a shield spell around him as the missile struck the ground, throwing him far from where they stood. "Chyuno!" Jumping to her feet, she ran to where he lay.

Shuyin and Zen ran after her. Chyuno was bleeding profusely.

With a trembling hand, Lenne tried to close the wounds and restore him, but her magic would not flow. Frustrated, she snatched another ether from the waist of her skirt and swallowed it down. Then, casting the glass vial aside, she tried again.

The severely wounded captain caught her hand. "Don't waste your magic on me. Save it for someone who needs less aid and can keep fighting."

"I am not going to sit here and watch you die!" She slapped his hand away and cast the spell despite his protests.

Chyuno rose on one elbow and grabbed Shuyin's collar since he knelt close by. "There's nothing more you can do here! Break through their lines! Get behind them and then run like hell to the temple! If you want to save those people in the caverns, someone's got to tell the rest of Spira what's happening! Bevelle must be stopped!"

"We can't give up yet." Lenne pushed the hair from her eyes with a dirt-and-blood-stained hand. "Just ... lay low until someone can help you return to Gagazet, okay?" Reluctant to leave their captain, she ran to the next injured warrior on the ground. But she was too late for him. Biting back the urge to cry, but she let her head drop to the man's lifeless chest for a moment to recoup her inner courage. Then, Lenne rose to her feet and moved toward more fallen bodies—all dead. And now black mages and summoners were beginning to litter the battlefield alongside guardians and warriors.

Flanking her every step of the way, Shuyin and Zen fended off more machina until Zen found himself surrounded. When Shuyin defeated the two that attacked him, he sprang at and struck the same machina Zen was trying to beat back. Together, the two of them brought them down. But they had no sooner claimed that victory when something jumped up from the ground and bowled Shuyin over. Losing his sword, he rolled onto his back. When he opened his eyes, a large garuda sparkling with pyreflies hovered over him, and more pyreflies were drawn to it from nearby bodies of the dead. This wasn't a natural beast. The eyeless, winged cross between a bird and a reptile swooped over him and raked its talons across his chest, cutting long, deep gouges into his skin.

"Shuyin!" Lenne started to run to his aid.

Zen blocked her with a strong arm. "Send lost souls that bring fiends!" Darting away from her, the ronso recovered Shuyin's sword and pitched it close enough for the blitzball player to reach. Then, he cast his lance like a spear, piercing the flying creature's wing.

Lenne lifted her gaze to the battlefield. A swarm of pyreflies was beginning to rise above Zanarkand's lost warriors. "No ..."

As Shuyin reached for his sword, the flailing fiend clawed him again. Zen bounded forward and twisted his lance free, jerking the garuda back and down before casting drain magic on it. Shuyin tried again for his sword, and this time, he got it. Sword in hand, he stood and cleaved the beast through with an overhead sweep. It would have killed any ordinary animal, but this was a fiend.

The garuda dove at him again, so he slashed at its belly, opening another large wound before hopping back and daring it to come close again. Zen cast one more drain spell on the creature, then stabbed it again with his lance and dragged it to the ground at his feet. Shuyin slammed his sword down across its neck, severing the head completely. The garuda's body melted into pyreflies, leaving no trace that it ever existed, except for the long crimson streaks that covered Shuyin's chest and arm.

Lenne winced at his wounds and wanted to heal them, but Zen was right. There were too many dead and dying on the field now. The last thing they needed was a battle with Bevelle on one side and a battle with fiends on the other. Twirling her summoning staff in a graceful circle, Lenne cast the spell to open the Farplane so that the lingering souls could depart.

Shuyin dropped to his knees to catch his breath and stabbed his sword into the soft dirt and grass beneath him. He looked at the stinging lacerations on his chest and arms, but there was no rest for the weary. He could already hear more machina soldiers coming their way. Standing with a moan, he positioned himself between her and the oncoming threat so that she could finish her sending. How long would this go on? How long before they all ended up as pyrefly bait like so many others? Looking toward the cliffs that opened toward Bevelle, he wondered if Chyuno had been right about escaping while they had the chance.

))((

By sunset, all of the Zanarkand army's major machina were down. About two-thirds of the regiment lay dead on the battlefield. There was no way to break through and nowhere to hide for those who remained. And after the last aeon was defeated, no new aeons come down from the mountain to take its place. Lenne was having to alternate between doing sendings, healing the wounded, and keeping her guardians alive. But she was also too late to treat most of the bodies she found now.

When she ran out of ethers again, Shuyin and Zen surrendered the last of their supply. But all too soon, she was frantically searching her clothing folds for more. "I had one more ether left. I know I did! Shuyin, I can't run out of ethers!"

Clutching wounded ribs where one of the soldier machina tried to gut him, Shuyin scanned the ground. "Behind you."

Lenne moved her foot and spotted the vial she dropped. That potion was more valuable than all the gil in Spira right now. Drinking it down to the last drop, knowing there would be no more, she cast a heal spell on the warrior beneath her.

The warrior sat up and tested his newly healed arm, but as he stood, his attention settled on the southern cliffs. The expression that washed over his face made the others turn and look. After letting the machina do most of their fighting for them, Bevelle's human warriors were now rushing onto the battlefield to claim their victory.

"You have got to be kidding," the worn and weary blitzball player spoke for them all. Seconds later, they had to ready their weapons and magic … again.

As the Bevelle warriors covered what was left of the battlefield, spreading rapidly toward what was left of Zanarkand's defenses, a bullet ripped through the ronso's unprotected chest, dropping him to his knees with a grunt.

"Zen!" The summoner gasped and cast a full-strength heal spell on him, then remembered to recast their shields.

Shuyin's shield spell deflected the bullets aimed at him, but the newly healed warrior wasn't so lucky. Growling in frustration, Shuyin charged the gunner who shot them and tried to disarm him. But the gun was fired into his leg during the scuffle, then grazed his throat. Flipping the hilt of his sword without looking down, he shoved it through the man's waist. The blitzball player's eyes widened in shock as his first human victim in this incredibly long battle stumbled away from him and fell.

He stared at the dark crimson stain puddling beneath him, seeping into the already saturated ground, and he didn't know whether to feel relieved or afraid. Shuyin had never killed another person before. This wasn't even like the time the water fiend attacked him and Koji. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he had no time to process the experience before more human warriors rushed and surrounded them.

Zen roared and bared his fangs, warning them to stay back. He had only a lance, but a ten-foot-tall, blue lion-man splattered with blood was not something to take lightly.

"Looks like we found a summoner." One of the Bevelle guards leveled a flame thrower on Shuyin, who stood in front of Lenne, glowering at them in malevolent silence. "Step aside, boys. All surviving summoners are coming with us. We don't want to hurt her trying to get you out of the way."

Shuyin's glower deepened, and he raised his sword in both hands just enough to make it clear he wasn't budging.

The Bevelle warrior fired the flame thrower.

Lenne cast a nulblaze shell just in time to spare Shuyin from being fried. It held up to the machina flames, but the fire was followed by a rush of warriors. She continued to replenish her guardians with healing spells until the last of her magic ran out, but they were sorely outnumbered. And this time, she had no ethers.

With a rush of adrenaline and sheer desperation, Shuyin cut through armor, flesh, and bone, one opponent after another. The blade damaged human beings with ease compared to the machina he'd been fighting up till now. He fought with every ounce of strength he could muster, using his body as Lenne's shield, right down to his last breath before a blow to the head dropped him unconscious to the ground.

))((

"Shuyin!" Lenne screamed and lunged for him the minute that he went down, but she was seized and dragged away.

The mighty ronso made one final attempt to free her by stabbing his lance through her captor's heart, but another blade simultaneously caught him in the back.

"Zen!" The summoner collapsed to the ground and wept. "No, no ..." Pulled back to her feet, she was cuffed in chains before the Bevelle soldiers pushed her away at gunpoint.

Lenne cried out for her guardians the rest of the way to a small airship. There, she was cuffed to an inside rail, along with several other mages and summoners. Placing a hand against the cold, glass window, she tried to see the battlefield through her tears. Her heart ached, not knowing whether Shuyin and Zen were alive or dead.

"There was a ronso guarding this one," the Bevelle warrior who had taken her captive reported to the pilot in charge of prisoners. "That may mean the ronso need watching as well. Tell the maester we'll camp here tonight after dropping off these prisoners … just in case."

"Will do, sir," the pilot answered.

"Maester?" she whispered to herself in shock. The person behind all of this was not just a Bevelle official but a maester? The temple in Bevelle was responsible for this attack? Yevon had been right about a spy among their own ranks! She felt as if she were going to swoon.

Before the window fogged over beneath the warmth of her hand, before the distance between their rising airship and the ground below became too high and frightening, Lenne saw an ant-sized handful of figures fleeing toward the mountains, retreating to Lady Yunalesca and the ronso. Zanarkand's army had suffered an overwhelming defeat.