A/N: Welcome to tonight's heavy-weight title match! In this corner is the flagship of the Blue Rogues: The Delphinus! And in the other corner, we have the largest sky fortress ever made: The Jericho! Let the games begin! Ding! Ding!

Remember how big the Hydra was in SoA? Well, as I said before, imagine a double-sized Hydra. THAT'S the Jericho. Hydra was tough enough. Now picture in your mind the Delphinus trying to fight this new monstrosity… ahem. Doesn't look fair, does it? Be sure to root for our heroes! This ain't gonna be easy!

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Chapter 9: Unstoppable Jericho

The clouds parted as the Delphinus rose through them in its pursuit of the Jericho. Onboard, a determined crew of Blue Rogues looked on as the massive sky fortress came into view. The Jericho was not moving, as if it was waiting for the Delphinus to emerge from below.

Lawrence turned his head to the right, not taking his hands off the wheel as he began to speak with his captain. "We've reached normal cruising altitude, Captain Vyse. What are your orders now?"

Vyse winced as shifted positions in his chair. His bound wounds were painfully irritating to say the least, despite the fact they had subject to Ilchymis' medicines and Fina's curative magiks. Gazing out of the observation window, Vyse began to wonder just how they were going to take Jericho down. He took the time to assess the situation.

The way things stood now, the Delphinus had only a small chance for victory. Judging from size alone, it would take every last ounce of firepower they had to even damage Jericho. Concerning the Jericho's own arsenal, one could easily assume that it had enough firepower to match any armada in Arcadia. Its armor, most likely, was just short of impervious. It was truly a wonder that this thing was even flying. The Delphinus did have two advantages of its own, however. One was the obvious speed difference. The Delphinus was already the fastest battleship in the world, but when compared to the massive Jericho, it appeared to be even faster than before. The other difference was the size difference. While the Jericho's size gives it more access to weapons and armor, it was also a very large target, thus making it so that a gunner would have to try and miss in order to miss their mark. The Delphinus' relative smallness, however, made it a very hard target to hit. Combining this with the Delphinus' speed made it even harder to do so.

As Vyse pondered what his next course of action would be, the communications panel next to his engineer, Hans, flickered to life. Hans turned to his captain and said, "Captain Vyse! We're being hailed by Jericho!"

Vyse nodded. "Right. Put him through."

Hans immediately complied and, after a few buttons were pressed, the ship's PA crackled to life. The voice that followed was that of Vicente. "Blue Rogues, before we open fire on and destroy your pitiful ship, I would like to make you an offer."

Clara beat Vyse to the punch. "What do you want, you monster?!"

A sadistic chuckle was heard. "Easy, lady. I want to give the Blue Rogues a chance to surrender and join the NVA. What do you say, Vyse? There's no need to die senselessly here. You seem to be a very charismatic leader. I could use someone like you in our new empire. Your little friends can join you, too. Even that pretty little girl you were so dead-set on guarding. What do you say, Vyse?"

Vyse and Gilder looked at each other and grinned. Surely this guy wasn't serious. After all, whoever heard of a Blue Rogue that surrendered? Vyse called Gilder, Clara, ad Fina to him and they huddled for a moment. Afterward, they broke apart and silently counted to three. At three, all four of them burst out into hysterical laughter.

"Not a chance, Vicente!" proclaimed Vyse proudly. "Sure, the odds aren't very good, but we would never forgive ourselves if we didn't at least try! And besides, this is for the world! And..." He grew very quiet as his smile faded. "…and for Aika."

A "hmph" could be heard on the other side of the PA. "You make me sad, Blue Rogues. So be it. Your fate is sealed." The Jericho's end of the communication line could be heard shutting off as static returned to the PA. Hans promptly shut it off.

The bridge became very serious once again. Looking around, Vyse could tell that everyone was scared, yet determined. They were ready to do what they had to do in order to win the day. Fina was standing close to his chair and he noticed that her hands were trembling. With his good hand, he reached over and took one of Fina's hands into his own. She looked down at him, with a slight look of relief on her face.

"It's okay to be scared, Fina," he said calmly. "But just think: if we win, we never have to worry about this guy again. Wouldn't that be nice?"

She smiled warmly and nodded.

He smiled back and continued. "Once we're all done here, we can go celebrate back at Crescent Isle. Yeah... a big party in honor of our victory and… in memory of Aika. Sound like fun?"

It didn't seem possible before, but once he said this, her eyes looked softer than they ever had before. "Yes Vyse. It sounds very fun."

Vyse nodded and kissed her hand. "Let's do this then."

She blushed fiercely. "Yes. Let's go get them!"

Vyse slowly released her hand and leaned back in his chair. This was it. The moment of truth. It was time to finally take action against the Jericho. He began to issue orders. "Battle stations everyone! You know the drill! Fina, please step into the mana turret and start bolstering our ship with magic. Gilder, take the spare gunner's position! Clara, act as his spotter! Everyone got it?"

His entire crew yelled in unison as they ran about. "Aye, aye, sir!"

Lawrence handed Vyse his scope and turned back to the wheel. Vyse extended the scope out to its full length and trained his sights on Jericho. "Load torpedo tubes 3, 4, 7, and 8!"

A moment passed in relative sentence. Through the speaker tube, Vyse heard Marco say, "Torpedoes loaded and ready to go cap'n!"

Vyse watched the Jericho for a bit longer. He was surprised that it had not attacked yet. Perhaps Vicente was hoping that the Delphinus would give up at the last second, thus avoiding causing any scratches to his new sky-fortress. Vyse grinned at this thought. "A scratch is gonna be the least of his worries once we're through with him." He put down his scope and yelled, "Launch torpedoes 3 and 7!"

The sound of rockets kicking in could be heard as Vyse watched the torpedoes soar past his bridge window. "Torpedoes launched and on the way, cap'n!" said Marco.

Vyse waited for a moment before taking any other actions. He watched the torpedoes as they screamed through the open sky. Once they were about halfway to the Jericho, Vyse yelled, "Launch Torpedoes 4 and 8!"

The same hissing sound of the torpedoes being launched could be heard as Marco said once more, "Torpedoes launched and on the way!" Vyse continued his observation, watching as the first salvo of torpedoes drew closer and closer. It was then that his eyes grew to their widest as he witnessed the launching of roughly twenty torpedoes from the Jericho.

"Evasive action! Lawrence, take evasive action!" yelled Vyse! He turned to the talking tube and switched the talking route to Gilder and Clara's turret. "Guys, we've got around twenty torpedoes coming our way! Switch anti-torpedo sub-cannons and take out as many of those things as you can!"

"Aye aye, Vyse!" said Clara. In the background, Gilder could be heard saying, "Heh. This should be fun," as a few clicks were heard.

The steady firing of four different sub-cannons could be heard as Vyse turned around in his chair to look at Fina in the chamber of the mana turret located at the back of the bridge. The glass door was closed, but through it could be seen a closed-eyes Fina with several magical lights flickering all around her. This chamber allowed her to control many magical operations on the ship at once and allowed her to keep a direct link to any of the moon's blessings she used.

"Fina, how are the enhancements going?" he asked.

Keeping her eyes closed for purposes of concentration, she replied through the speaker, "The bolstering of the ship's defenses is complete for now. In response to the launching of Jericho's torpedoes, I will try to assist Mr. Lawrence by increasing the Delphinus' engine output."

Turning the wheel hard, Lawrence replied, "Thank you, Miss Fina. We're going to need it."

Vyse nodded to her even though she couldn't see it. "Alright. Just do your best, but be careful Fina. That chamber's still experimental."

She could be seen smiling as the mystical lights of the blue moon surrounded her. "Thank you Vyse. I'll be careful."

"Sir!" cried Domingo. "Torpedoes 3 and 7 have hit their mark, but they seem to have only scratched the surface of Jericho! I don't think torpedoes are gonna cut it sir!"

The captain whirled back around in his chair and picked his scope back up. As he investigated the damage caused by the torpedoes Domingo mentioned, Vyse witnessed the impact of torpedoes 4 and 8 on the upper hull of the Jericho. Just as Domingo had said before, the torpedoes seemed to have little effect. The only damages that had been inflicted were some medium scratches and dents as well as hard-to-remove blast-mark stains. Other than that, the torpedoes were doing squat.

He turned his attention to the torpedoes as the ship continued to turn as far away from the torpedoes as possible. Several explosions could be seen as Gilder, Khazim, and Khazim's two assistants destroyed several of the incoming torpedoes with their sub-cannons. Unfortunately, a little less than half of the torpedoes managed to get through the torrential rain of sub-cannon fire.

Vyse quickly set the talking tube to speak with all sections of the ship. "Everyone! Brace for impact!"

"Curses!" yelled Lawrence as he gave the wheel one last hard turn. This last maneuver caused three of the remaining torpedoes to miss their marks but the remainder of them hit dead on. The entire ship shook with the force of a scale-7 earthquake as five consecutive explosions were heard.

Vyse was thrown from his chair, Lawrence fell to the cold, steel floor, and Fina could be seen shaking about inside the mana chamber. Vyse got up as quickly as possible and got back into his chair, switching the talking tube to the engineering room as he did so. "Hans! Damage report!"

Several loud crackles and liquid pouring could be heard as Hans replied back to Vyse. "Captain! We've taken four hits to the hull surrounding the engine room! We've also lost turret number three!"

Vyse's eyes shot open as he quickly replied, "Fix everything that you can!" Without waiting for a response, he opened up communications with turret three. "Salam! Salam! Are you ok?"

Nothing could be heard at first. A moment later, a few coughs were heard before Salam came on and said, "I-I'm okay captain. I saw the torpedo coming my way and got out just in time. The turret's done for though."

Both angry and relieved, Vyse pounded his bad knee as he replied, "Nothing we can do about that. Go spot for Abu, quickly!"

Salam replied back but Vyse wasn't paying attention as he wheeled about to face the mana chamber. "Fina?"

Her eyes were still closed. "I'm fine Vyse, but the ship isn't. Two of the fuel links between the engine and our moonstone reserves have been destroyed and have caused a forty-percent decrease in engine performance. The blue moon can't give us any more speed Vyse. In addition, we've lost one of our four turrets. All eight torpedo tubes seem to be intact however."

Vyse sank back into his chair as he watched Lawrence stand back up. Things weren't looking good. Only one salvo had been fired by each ship and, already, the Delphinus was losing badly. Far-range combat wasn't going to cut it. To win at this rate, Vyse would have to gamble.

"Lawrence," he started. "Full-speed ahead towards Jericho."

Lawrence turned back to his captain with a disbelieving look in his eyes. "I beg your pardon captain, but are you insane? There's no way we can take on that thing considering the damage we just took!"

Even Fina opened her eyes after hearing what Vyse said. She was wondering just what in the world he was thinking. "Vyse? What are you planning?"

Looking at no one in particular. "The only way we're going to win against fire-power and armor like that is to gamble. With the loss of power caused by our most recent hits, we can't use the moonstone cannon until Hans can supply us with enough power. Our only chance to win may be with Fina and the mana turret. We're too far away to hit the Jericho with any spells now, so we'll have to close-in with it. If we can make it long enough to get close enough, we can start blasting it with magic."

Lawrence cocked an eyebrow and wore a worried expression on his face. "Captain Vyse, I don't think-"

He was interrupted by his captain. "Lawrence, this is our only chance. If we retreat, the Jericho will either just hunt us down or go on a killing spree around the islands of Arcadia. We can't allow that to happen. Also, please have faith in Fina." He turned to her with a small smile. "She's the greatest of the moons' priestesses. "If anyone can stop that thing, it's her."

She put her hands over her heart, not sure what to think of such a compliment, given their current circumstances. "Vyse…"

He interrupted her as well. "I know you can do it Fina. I just know it." Vyse switched the talking tube to all areas of the ship and quickly explained the plan. He then began to issue individual orders. "All gunners, switch to main cannons and lay down a suppressing line of fire until you see any signs of torpedoes. If any are seen, switch to sub-cannons and do your best to destroy them before we are struck again. As small as we are, it will be hard for them to hit us with anything other than torpedoes. Marco, I want you to load all eight torpedo tubes and wait for my order to fire. Hans, concentrate all of your efforts on supplying the engine with more power. Urala, please assist Khazim in turret number two as a spotter. All other crew members, report to the engineering room and help Hans as well as you can!"

Around fifteen different voices could be heard yelling "Aye, aye!" all at once. Several sounds of shuffling and bustling could be heard in the backgrounds of all parts of the ship.

Vyse turned back to his helmsman. "Lawrence, please trust me on this one. I need you more than ever now."

The helmsman turned back to the observation window. "Hmph. I don't get paid enough for this." He gave the wheel a slight turn. "As always, I will perform to the best of my abilities, Captain Vyse," he said with no hint of sarcasm in his voice at all.

Vyse turned back to Fina. "Are you ready, Fina?"

She nodded as she closed her eyes once more. "Yes Vyse. I'm ready when you are."

He nodded. "Thank you Fina." He turned back to the observation window. "Alright everyone! Let's do it!"

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Eep! The Delphinus is losing! Is victory even possible at this point! It doesn't look likely, but let's hope that they can somehow pull this off.
Chapter 10 coming ASAP, so please send me some reviews while you wait. Thank you in advance, and I hope you all are enjoying the story!