Things had gone badly for Spira's rebellion over the past couple weeks, Shuyin mused from the Farplane glen. After those first few victories against the Empire's forces, the Imperial troops had rallied about and dealt crushing defeat after crushing defeat. The Youth League forces led by Jecht at the Mi'ihen Highroad had been completely wiped out, down to the last man. For obvious reasons, Jecht was the only survivor.
They had failed to take Luca; the Imperials had air-dropped an entire battalion of stormtroopers and four AT-ST walkers into the city, forcing the rebels to surrender. Kilika was fortunate enough not to have been completely destroyed. It was still in Spira's hands, but the Empire had surrounded the island by sea and air, and Shuyin knew that Spira's forces wouldn't last much longer under the siege.
Mushroom Rock Road was still under their control. That was largely due to all the fiends Shuyin had concentrated in that area, setting them upon every stormtrooper patrol that dared to set foot into the rocky canyon. The Empire hadn't brought their walkers to play yet because the terrain was too difficult for the balance-oriented walkers to handle.
The biggest problem to their rebellion, Shuyin knew, was that damned Super Star Destroyer orbiting the planet. Whatever they managed to cause on Spira could be undone in a heartbeat with an orbital bombardment. The Empire had gotten wind that survivors of the Mi'ihen disaster and Luca had taken refuge in the fading Macalania forest. Not an hour later, the woods had been reduced to burning cinders by the Empire's delicate grace.
Shuyin tightly clenched his fists. All the hatred between Spirans that he had loathed for a thousand years was nothing compared to the destructive power of the Empire. If only he had waited a few more months, then Vegnagun could have been used against the Super Star Destroyer.
Suddenly, he felt gentle hands on his shoulders, interrupting him from his thoughts. Those hands slid down over his chest and linked together as Lenne leaned against his back, laying her head against the back of his neck.
All at once, his anger at the Empire was shoved from the front of his mind. It was still there, seething and boiling, but it was no longer the focus of his attention. "I didn't notice you coming," he said with a smile.
"You were lost in your thoughts," she answered. "I didn't want to disturb you."
He sat there amidst the flowers, with Lenne leaning against him, for several long moments. He didn't want this moment to end, but he knew she had news. She wouldn't have come back without information. "You confirmed the rumors?" he asked finally.
"Yes. The Empire has kicked all the civilians out of Bevelle and locked it down tight. Even I had difficulty getting in. I have no clue what they may be trying to do there."
He nodded, brushing his hands against the nearby flowers. "And the rumors about something happening in the Thunder Plains?"
"Braska is looking into that. He told me to come back here and rest for a while."
Shuyin smiled and turned halfway around. Lenne lifted her head from his back as he did so, and he reached out his right hand to brush a long strand of brown hair out of her face. "You are doing a lot for us, Lenne. I am very grateful. You deserve to take a break."
She smiled warmly at him. "You know, it's rather funny. For a thousand years, you waited and plotted for Spira's destruction. And now, as this war rages that could destroy Spira, you were the first to pick up your sword in its defense."
He smirked in return. "It was you who opened my eyes, Lenne. You showed me that I was wrong."
The songstress shook her head. "Thank Yuna. You wouldn't have even listened had she and the others not destroyed Vegnagun and beaten you."
Shuyin nodded mutely, staring down at the ground. "It's almost a shame that they did destroy Vegnagun."
Lenne looked up at him, her eyes wide with shock and fear.
He met eyes with her, and winced at her expression. "No, no, let me explain. If they hadn't destroyed Vegnagun, then we would've had one shot, maybe two, at taking down the Super Star Destroyer."
She sighed with relief, pressing one hand to her chest as she struggled to return her breathing to normal. "For a moment…"
"Never," he said quickly. "I would never even think to destroy Spira again."
Smiling, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm glad."
He didn't reply verbally. She heard a faint snapping sound, and looked down to see his hand coming up with a flower in it. Her smile widening, she turned her head to one side so that he could slide the stem of the flower through the curtain of her hair and rest it against her ear.
His fingers gently touched her chin, turning her head back toward him. She closed her eyes as he leaned toward her.
"Whoa, sorry, didn't know we were interrupting!" Jecht's brash voice called out, causing Shuyin to pull back from Lenne in surprise.
Lenne opened her eyes slowly, uttering a little whimper of irritation, then turned her fiercely-blushing face toward the trio that stood nearby. Jecht was grinning like a fool, obviously proud of himself for breaking the mood. Auron was shaking his head at Jecht's immaturity, and Braska looked apologetic. Sighing, Lenne left herself a mental reminder to get back at Jecht later.
"Hey Braska," Jecht continued, oblivious, "you think my boy and little Yuna try to pull this stuff too?"
"Of course they do, Jecht," Braska replied, shaking his head. "They're in love. That's what you do when you're in love. Right, Shuyin?"
Grinning, Shuyin put an arm around Lenne and gave Braska a thumbs-up with his other hand.
"Not my boy," Jecht rambled on. "I better have taught him better manners than that. If I catch him trying to get all kissy-faced with Yuna, I'll put him in his place!"
Lenne suddenly grinned mischievously at the idea of talking Yuna and Tidus into making out in front of Jecht, then leaned over and made her idea known to Shuyin, who glanced at her with an evil glint to his eyes.
By the look he was giving them, Braska figured they were up to some kind of practical joke. Smiling a conspiratorial smile, he went ahead with the reason for their visit. "Well, I finished looking around the Thunder Plains. There's a heavy concentration of Imperial activity there, and they're fiercely guarding the caves. They must have built, or are building, something that is vital to them."
"Whatever it is, it's connected to Bevelle," Auron said. "There are only Imperials in that city, now. They're expecting us to eventually mass and go after Bevelle, and they plan to make a fight of it."
"We need to gather all the leaders together and discuss our plans," Jecht said, all-business now. "I think that we should let them bulk up Bevelle all they want to, while we go around Spira kicking their asses out of every other place. Then when we have the rest of Spira under our control, we kick their sorry asses off of our planet!"
"And once we've killed every soldier of the Empire on Spira, they use their Star Destroyer and pound the surface of the planet flat," Auron replied. "What then?"
"Actually," Lenne said, "Shuyin has an idea about that."
The trio turned toward the blitzer, silent.
"Vegnagun," Shuyin said, without preamble.
Braska's expression was openly shocked. Jecht stumbled back as though he'd been gut-punched, and Auron merely raised the brow over his good eye.
"Are you crazy!?" Jecht burst out. "Even if Yuna and the others hadn't trashed that thing, that'd be a fool's errand! Vegnagun could go crazy and destroy all of Spira, or it could even self-destruct with the same result!"
"It's a risk we have to take!" Lenne shot back, voice and expression hard. "Yes, it's chancy at best. Yes, using Vegnagun could end up destroying Spira. But what would happen if we allowed their Super Star Destroyer to remain up there, where it can raze the entire planet? We still lose."
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, calming herself. She felt Shuyin take one of her hands and squeeze gently, and smiled at the thoughtfulness he was giving her. When she finally opened her eyes, she fixed Jecht with a cool stare that made the older man take a step back.
"Jecht, our backs are to the wall. We must use every method we can, despite the risks. Our very survival is in question here. It's a blitzer's saying, Jecht. Remember it? 'When you have the ball, you have to score.'" Truthfully, Lenne wouldn't even know about the sayings of blitzball players were it not for Shuyin. "Vegnagun is our ball, Jecht. We have to score."
"She has a point, Jecht," Braska said. "If we could destroy the Star Destroyer with Vegnagun, we would have a decisive edge. The Empire doesn't know that Vegnagun is broken, that we wouldn't dare use it twice if it weren't." The former high summoner turned to Shuyin. "Are you sure this will work?"
Shuyin nodded. "Most of Vegnagun's higher capacities were destroyed, but it still has power. It can probably fire, but only once. Getting it pointed up at the Star Destroyer will be tough, but we can do it."
Lenne brought her other hand around and held Shuyin's in both of hers as she stared at him intently. "I will help you. The fayth will help you."
He looked over at her and nodded, smiling.
Auron glanced at the occupants of the Farplane glen, then turned away. "I'll begin getting the leaders together. We shall meet in the Farplane from Guadosalam."
---
Darth Vader stood looking out the bridge viewports of the Executor, down to Spira turning silently below them. His rhythmical and steady breathing filled the bridge, yet did not distract any of the crewmen from their tasks. The Dark Lord of the Sith reached out through the Force, searching for that now-familiar disturbance in the natural flow of the Force.
He could still sense her, down there somewhere, but he could no more pinpoint her location than the location of the Rebel fleet gallivanting across space. Skywalker must have been teaching her how to hide herself, and teaching her well.
He was not concerned. In time, she would seek him out. He had forseen it.
"Lord Vader," a bridge crewman said, prompting the Dark Lord to turn.
"Yes, Lieutenant? What is it?"
"We've located the sunken Republic cruiser that the rebels have been drawing their weapons from."
"Very well, Lieutenant. You may fire when ready."
The officer turned away, and Vader turned his attention back toward the viewports. A few moments later, he felt a gentle thrum through the deck of the ship as the heavy bombardment turbolasers flashed out, seeking a target down in the depths of Spira's oceans.
He watched the turbolasers continue to fire down onto the planet, just as they already had twice before. Huge gouts of steam rose from the turbolasers' point of impact, blocking his vision of the target area.
The barrage lasted for several minutes, then the turbolasers suddenly cut out and a crewman reported, "Target destroyed."
Almost simultaneously, a communications officer looked up from the crew pit. "Lord Vader, there is a hypercomm transmission from Coruscant for you."
Vader immediately turned and strode toward the exit of the bridge. "I will take it in my quarters, Lieutenant."
Several minutes later, Vader kneeled down upon the holoprojection platform and lowered his head in the darkened chamber as the blue-white holoimage of Emperor Palpatine's hooded head appeared in midair.
"What is thy bidding, my master?" Vader asked.
"It is time for you to abandon your tiresome venture around that useless planet. Their weapons are of no use to us, and their Sin is no more. The construction of the Death Star is behind schedule. I want you to go there and inform Moff Jerjerrod that I will be arriving to personally oversee its completion."
"As you wish." Vader paused, but this did not go unnoticed by the Emperor.
"I sense that you are hesitant to leave the system. You wish to confront the descendant of Juun Toral. By all means, eliminate the young apprentice, then leave immediately for the sanctuary moon of Endor."
"It will be my pleasure, Master."
Palpatine did not reply. His image vanished from the darkened room, leaving Vader in silence except for his heavily-mechanical breathing.
---
Yuna listened in silence to the discussion on the Farplane. The small platform was slightly crowded, being that it was occupied by herself, Tidus, Nooj, and the Rebel pilot Arren, as well as Gippal, Baralai, Rikku, Paine, Shuyin, Lenne, Braska, Jecht, Auron, Tromell, Tobli, and Kimahri. Yuna smiled faintly; she had been very pleased to hear that Kimahri had survived the massacre on Gagazet.
"No, I don't have any idea what the Empire could be trying to use Bevelle for," Baralai said, in response to the question posed. "I was pushed out of the city with the first group. I would assume that they intend to make a stand out of Bevelle. The city was designed to afford the maximum advantage to the defenders. It's been that way ever since–" Baralai abruptly stopped himself, recalling the presence of Lenne and Shuyin.
"Ever since the Machina War," Lenne said, resting her right hand on Shuyin's knee. "Do not be worried, Praetor Baralai. We bear you no ill will for events a thousand years past."
Baralai nodded his head toward her. "Thank you."
"I agree with him," Shuyin said. "That is the only thing that I can conceive of the Empire doing in Bevelle."
Arren raised his hand, turning toward Braska. "You said that you saw the Empire building something in a cave? Is there any way you could show me what you saw?"
Looking toward the Rebel pilot, Braska nodded. "Actually, there is."
As the gathered assembly watched, a single pyrefly drifted out of Braska's body and crossed the cavern to the Rebel pilot, drifting into the other man's body and disappearing. Arren shook as though he'd been punched, then closed his eyes. Several moments passed in silence.
Finally, the pyrefly reemerged from the Rebel's body and drifted back to Braska. Arren opened his eyes and took a deep breath, nodding. "It's a shield generator, like the one the Rebellion had on Hoth. The generator they're building isn't anywhere near as powerful as the one we had, so it couldn't withstand an orbital bombardment. However, it is sufficient enough to keep anything from getting into Bevelle that they don't want in."
"We'll have to destroy it," Nooj said.
"That can be done later, Noojster," Gippal replied, then motioned toward Lenne and Shuyin with one gloved hand. "They've got a pretty good idea going. Take over all of Spira, then attack Bevelle from all sides. We'll pop their shield generator just as we're ready to go in, and they won't be able to stop us."
"What about their ship?" Paine asked, arms crossed. "We saw what they did to Macalania and Besaid. There will be nothing stopping them from doing that to all of Spira if we beat them."
Silence greeted her statement. The gathered assembly looked around at one another, none of them having any idea how they could stop the Star Destroyer from raining death out of the skies. Lenne looked over at Shuyin and gently nudged him with her elbow.
He looked over at her, then nodded and turned his attention toward the others. Braska, Jecht, and Auron, he noticed, had also been watching him. Standing up, he cleared his throat to draw the others' attention to him. "We have one chance to destroy the Star Destroyer. Vegnagun."
Shocked reactions ran across the faces of those present, except for the three with whom Shuyin had already had this discussion. The meeting quickly degenerated into a series of agitated conversations between two and three people. He sighed and looked over at Lenne, having expected something like this. She flashed him a "What can you do?" smile.
"How?" Yuna asked suddenly, her voice cutting across all the conversations and silencing them instantly.
Shuyin turned toward her. "When you destroyed Vegnagun, it wasn't completely demolished. I had been charging up the final shot when you damaged the control center. It's still functional, barely. But the logic circuits were so badly fried that Vegnagun is basically nothing but a cannon with a very large tank attached to it."
"So if you can get the cannon pointed up into the sky, you can fire it and blow their ship out of space?" Tidus ventured.
"Right," Shuyin said with a nod. "The idea is to fire Vegnagun while the rest of you are fighting the Empire. There is a small chance that Vegnagun could self-destruct when I try to fire it."
"But it's a risk we have to take," Auron said, silencing any remarks from the others. "Certain death is our future if we do not destroy the ship. Vegnagun is all we can count on to do that."
Shuyin's mind suddenly flashed back to a thousand years past, when he had said similar words, but with an entirely different motive in mind. You're all I can count on to save Lenne… He looked over at her, then slipped an arm around her waist.
The others all nodded their agreement to Auron's statement. Shuyin listened absently as the others went about their plans to gain control of the major towns and areas of Spira. He could only pray that Vegnagun still functioned.
Yuna suddenly gasped, sitting up straight on Tidus' lap and looking around in shock. Tidus instantly placed his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to calm her down. "Yuna, what's wrong?"
"He's coming," she gasped, breathless.
"Who's coming?" Gippal asked, quite obliviously.
"Vader," Yuna replied, her voice a whisper.
Jecht's head came up. "He's coming for Yuna!"
"But he'd gladly kill all of us just the same," Nooj answered calmly. "We have to go."
"No," Yuna said quietly, standing shakily. At the others' confused expressions, she reached down and drew her lightsaber. "You have to escape. I will hold him off."
"But Yunie…" Rikku whined, wheeling her hands in the air nervously.
"I'll be okay," Yuna said, smiling nervously at her cousin. "The Force is my ally."
"Yuna…" Tidus began.
She turned around to face him, drawing in a deep breath. "Tidus, please go with them. You can't stand up to Vader."
"But–"
"Please. I will be okay. I promise."
Tidus sighed. He didn't want to leave Yuna alone to face that monster, but he knew that he couldn't talk her into letting him stay. Sighing again, he pulled her to him for a tight hug, whispering into her ear, "I love you."
She wrapped her arms tightly around him, the cylindrical form of the lightsaber pressing into his back. "I love you. Go. Be safe. I'll come back."
He stepped away from her, sighing painfully, and felt a gloved hand gently rest on his shoulder. He looked back to see Shuyin standing there, his other hand held securely in both of Lenne's. Everyone else had already gone. "Let's go," Shuyin said softly.
Nodding, Tidus turned and left with the two of them. Yuna simply turned around, the lightsaber in hand, and stared out at the depths of the Farplane. In moments, there was only silence except for the musical sound of the pyreflies floating in the air.
Several minutes passed.
Suddenly, Yuna lifted the lightsaber at her side and thumbed the activation button, the blue-green blade hissing into life as she spun around, keeping the weapon at her side.
Hoo-pah. Hoo-pah. Hoo-pah.
The sound of the Dark Lord's mechanical breathing suddenly broke into the silence of the Farplane as his black-armored form stepped through the opaque barrier of energy separating the Farplane from the world of the living. In his hand, the already-activated blade of his lightsaber glowed a malevolent red.
Summoning up her long-helpful courage, Yuna stared across the platform, her bi-colored gaze meeting the cold black lenses of her enemy. No words were spoken.
A/N: Holy damn, asses are gonna get whipped. What's this? Vegnagun? A shield generator? Onoz! Death and destruction will ensue! Oh, and also:
HAH! Cliffhanger! Eat it! EAT IT UP LIKE I KNOW YOU WILL!
-Cough- Moving along to the shout-outs.
SevenTowers: I picked up an obsession with Lenne about halfway through "Birth of the Rebellion" so be expecting a lot more kickassness from her in the future.
shadowwolf75: It was actually pretty easy. I didn't have much trouble at all blending the worlds.
Furitaurus: Why didn't the Empire just bombard the surface of Hoth flat? Or Bespin? Okay, so I admit that Bespin doesn't have a surface. -- That's beside the point! Anyways, the reason why the Empire never takes the most efficient method of dealing with Rebels is three-fold. 1. The movie angle. Because the Rebels are the good guys, and the good guys always win. 2. The political angle. The Empire doesn't want to stir up more rebellion than it already has. If they go around razing every second planet, then the whole damn galaxy'll rise up against 'em. 3. The stupid angle. The Empire has the biggest fuckin' ego I have ever seen in my life, second only to a few RPers on Gaia. Every time the Rebels lay the smackdown on 'em, the Empire gets pissed off and tries to lay a smackdown right back. It usually backfires tho.
Raven: -Smack- Leave better reviews than that, asshat.
Wolfy16: Wanna see Auron fight? Wait 'til chapter 10. It's guaranteed!
JinYuy: 1st review- Vegnagun good enough? >:3 2nd review- I'm something of a geek. I always try to learn as much as I can about whatever fandom I'm currently into. And I was a Star Wars geek for three years running, then on and off again the past four years.
snowecat: Now don't you worry none about Yuna fixin' to have her ass handed to her by Vader. I've got a trick up my sleeve. And Luke only had trouble with Vader on Bespin. He was owning from the word go at Endor.
Morgaine of the Fairies: The only problem is that the only X-wing on all of Spira is broken. There are plenty of LAAT/i's lying around though......
Agla: -Smacks you once for the double post, then smacks you again for the random postings about porn and whatnot- Idiot. Ah well, thanks for the comments just the same. I knew it'd be easy to slip Spira into the galaxy because hell, it's a big fuckin' galaxy. There's new worlds all over the place. Spira just happens to be one of them.
