Approximately an hour later, the shuttle carrying the Rebel group slowly approached the Thunder Plains from the west. Inside, the command crew nervously sat in their seats, praying that they wouldn't get caught.

"If they don't go for this," Paine said, "we're going to have to get out of here pretty quick."

A faint buzzing sound was the reply as an Imperial's voice filtered over their comlink. "We have you on our screen now. Please identify."

Tidus leaned forward and, after carefully checking that he was indeed about to press the comlink control, spoke into the device, "Shuttle Intrepid requesting deactivation of the security shield."

He looked back to his comrades as the shuttle continued on its course toward the plains. Moments later, the voice came back.

"Shuttle Intrepid, transmit the clearance code for shield passage."

"Transmission commencing," Tidus said, letting Rikku lean over him and press the proper button.

"Now we find out if that code was worth the trouble we went through," Jake said dryly.

"It'll work," Tidus replied, trying to remain optimistic. "Come on, we can do this!"

"Shuttle Intrepid, what is your cargo and destination?"

"Parts and technical crew for the shield generator," Tidus replied, struggling to keep ahead of the Imperials' questions.

For several long minutes, the group waited in silence. Finally, Paine said, "They're not going for it."

As if to debunk her statement, the comlink beeped again and the voice of the Imperial controller returned. "Shuttle Intrepid, deactivation of the security shield will commence immediately. Continue on your present course."

"I told you it was going to work," Tidus said, angling the ship down toward the Thunder Plains. "No problem."

The shuttle descended into darkness, the ever-present storm clouds of the Thunder Plains surrounding the ship as rain pelted the metal hull, lightning flashed through the skies, and thunder boomed all around them.

Rikku shivered slightly in her seat, glancing around nervously at the booming thunder. Yuna, in contrast, sat completely calm in her seat, her eyes closed. She seemed to be meditating. Kimahri, as usual, had no discernible expression. The two former stormtroopers had already replaced their helmets, and Paine looked bored.

Moments later, the shuttle penetrated the lowest layer of the clouds, the Thunder Plains panning out before it. Tidus expertly guided the shuttle away from the main path through the plains, heading toward a small cleared space amongst a series of large, rocky outcrops.

Within a few minutes, the group had disembarked from the shuttle. Paine had donned her helmet and stood with Stev and Jake, emulating their actions and motions almost perfectly. The Rebel strike force was clad in dark greys and blacks, to better blend in with the rocky surroundings of the Thunder Plains.

Tidus checked the unfamiliar blaster pistol holstered at his right side, then the sword on his other side. With that finished, he turned and looked at his strike force. "Well, let's go find the shield generator."

---

It was a place to which he had never intended to return. It was dark now, all the energies he had guided to this place in order to power the colossus returned elsewhere. But he could still see it, the huge looming shadow wrapped insect-like around countless platforms.

Shuyin looked to his side, where Lenne stood staring at the colossus known as Vegnagun, frozen in place by the sheer sight of it. He reached over and took her hands in his, squeezing them tightly. At his touch, she tore her eyes away from the weapon of mass destruction and stared deep into the shining blue orbs belonging to her lover.

"It's time, Lenne. The fate of Spira is in our hands."

The songstress smiled, squeezing his hands in return. "Yes. After this, we shall finally rest."

Hand in hand, the two began to run up the pathway toward Vegnagun.

---

Hundreds of vessels began to move off the coast of Bikanel Island. The seas were filled with blockade-running transports and destroyers, while hundreds of fighters and LAAT/i's dashed through the skies around the bigger transports and the two flagships of the Spiran fleet.

Leading the formation in his salvaged and repaired X-wing, Arren glanced around at the comfortingly-familiar cockpit gauges and screens. Behind him followed five LAAT/i gunship transports and six Delta-7 "Jedi" starfighters. His squadron, Gold Squadron, was the spearpoint of the Spiran fleet.

"Admiral, we're in position," Arren said over the comlink, defaulting to military rank in reference to Nooj, who was commanding the expedition from the bridge of the Airship. "All fighters accounted for."

"Proceed with the countdown," Nooj's distorted voice came in over the frequencies. "All groups assume attack coordinates."

One of the Al Bhed pilots in his squadron said something in his natural language to another pilot. Arren did not know the language himself, but it had been programmed into his comm system's translator. Words appeared on his text screen to let him know what the pilot had said.

"Don't worry, my friends are down there," the Rebel pilot replied to the statement. "They'll have that shield down on time." He paused, and toggled the switch to feed power to his deflector shields, before muttering more to himself, "Or this will be the shortest offensive of all time…"

"All craft, prepare to engage engines on my mark."

"All right, stand by," Arren said to his pilots, just seconds before kicking in his fuzial-thrust engines and blasting toward Bevelle. Hundreds of vessels of war followed in his wake.

---

At that same time, the Rebel group in the Thunder Plains were crouched behind an outcropping, looking down at the hidden back entrance to the shield generator that they had unwittingly stumbled upon.

Yuna stared through a set of macrobinoculars at the doors below. She could see one guard in the armored gear of Imperial scout troopers standing at the doors. "This shouldn't be too difficult. There's only one guard."

"It only takes one to sound the alarm," Paine replied, nodding her helmeted head.

"Then we do it real quiet-like!" Rikku answered, keeping her voice low to emphasize her point.

"We'll take care of this," Tidus said, motioning for several of the Rebel troops to go around to the side of the bunker. As he did so, he moved around to the opposite side of the bunker, making sure to keep a rock formation between him and the guard at the door.

Minutes later, Tidus ran out from the left side of the bunker, tapping the scout trooper on his right shoulder as he did so. As soon as he did, he ran quickly toward the other side of the bunker.

The scout trooper turned to his right, caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye and quickly turned to see Tidus running away. "Hey!" He then ran after the retreating blitzer.

No sooner had the scout trooper rounded the corner when he realized his mistake. Paine, Jake, and Stev, all unhelmeted, as well as three other Rebel commandos, had leveled their blasters directly at the hapless trooper. Knowing that it was no use, the trooper lowered his arms to his side in a gesture of surrender.

Stev set his blaster rifle on the ground and began the process of exchanging his own stormtrooper armor for the scout armor worn by their prisoner. After that was finished, he bound the scout trooper's hands and feet with a length of cord from his utility belt, then stunned the trooper and deposited him behind a rock several meters away from the bunker.

In the meantime, a well-placed swing of Yuna's lightsaber triggered the doors of the bunker to slide open. She, as well as Tidus, Paine, Jake, Rikku, Kimahri, and several of the Rebel troops entered the bunker, most of them carrying packs of explosive charges. Outside, Stev took the guard position of the scout trooper and keyed the door shut behind them.

Nodding, Tidus led the way down into the shield bunker.

---

Shuyin watched the last of the aeons burst into pyreflies and return to their dormant state within Lenne's mind. With their help, and the help of a few of the larger fiends roaming the heart of the Farplane, Vegnagun's gigantic main cannon had been pointed up toward the "sky" where Shuyin would open a portal when it was time to fire.

He leapt up into the cockpit of Vegnagun, then turned and held out a hand for Lenne to join him. He didn't know if powering up the weapon again would bring his destructive side back to the front, but he did know that having Lenne with him would keep that side from taking control. He didn't want to take any chances. Everything was depending on them.

As soon as Lenne's booted feet touched the metal floor of the cockpit, Shuyin turned and dropped himself into the same seat that he had occupied mere months before.

The first notes of the activation tune echoed out over the darkness, sending the fiends he had been employing to help him just moments before running for cover. As he continued to play, his fingers dancing over the keys of the organ-like control panel before him, the board pulsed to life, its multicolored keys reflecting their light across the faces of himself and Lenne.

Lenne reached out her right hand and placed it on Shuyin's shoulder, feeling the muscles of his arm twist and contort as his hands flew over the keys with a practiced grace. Listening closely to the song he was playing, she could have found its haunting melody a thing of beauty were it not used to activate the most destructive weapon on the face of Spira.

Without warning, Shuyin changed from the hauntingly-beautiful start-up melody to what she assumed was the command sequence to fire the main cannon. This music was more fast-paced, more militaristic in nature, and was filled with many dramatic pauses.

"Come, Vegnagun," Shuyin said suddenly, the hateful and cold tone to his voice sending shivers down Lenne's spine. She tightened her hold on his shoulder. "Let us purge the world of this repulsive Empire."

---

A sharp blast echoed through the sealed inner control room of the shield generator as the doors slid open, revealing Tidus standing there, Brotherhood in hand. Yuna held her glowing lightsaber in her hand directly behind him, and the presence of that weapon scared the four Imperial controllers more than the heavily-armed soldiers standing behind them.

"All right, up!" Tidus ordered. "Move! Come on, quickly, quickly! Kimahri."

Nodding in response, the elder Ronso moved to back the Imperials into a corner, keeping them under control at the edge of his spear. The other soldiers spread out to begin planting charges.

Yuna stepped around Tidus and pressed a button on the Imperial command console. "Tidus, we have to hurry. The fleet will be at Bevelle at any moment."

Holstering the Brotherhood, Tidus walked past Yuna and held out his hands toward one of the Rebels on the other side of the console. "Charges, come on! Let's do this!"

Outside, two Imperial stormtroopers stood guard at the entrance as an entire squad of stormtroopers ran at full speed into the bunker.

An Imperial officer suddenly stepped around the corner leading into the power generation room, pointing his blaster at the group. "Freeze!"

Without hesitating, Tidus reared back and hurled the case of charges at the man. Caught off-guard, the man toppled backwards over the safety railing with a scream of surprise.

As that man fell over, two stormtroopers came around the other side of the catwalk, as the squad from outside emerged into the room. Tidus turned around just as another officer leveled his blaster at him. "You rebel scum."

The controllers that Kimahri had previously been holding at bay all reached out and disarmed the Ronso, now that they were reinforced by more troops.

---

In the skies near Bevelle, the Spiran fleet suddenly dropped to normal cruising speed, moving into their designated units and advancing on the city. In his X-wing at the lead of the formation, Arren reached out and tapped his comm console. "All wings, report in."

"Red Leader, standing by."

"Grey Leader, standing by."

"Green Leader, standing by."

"Switch on your deflector screens," Gippal, the voice of Red Leader, said.

Arren reached over his left shoulder and flipped the s-foil accuator switch. He felt the gentle thrum course through his fighter as the wings split into their x-configuration that gave his ship its name.

"May the Force be with us," Nooj said over the comlinks.

Arren looked down as he heard the same pilot from before speaking in Al Bhed to one of his fellows. He read the translation, then keyed his comm unit. "We've got to be able to get some sort of reading on that shield, up or down."

"But sir, what if they're jamming us?"

"Well how could they be jamming us if they don't know­–" The Rebel pilot cut himself off, staring out at the city before him. Swearing, he brought up his weapons systems and fired a quad-linked laser burst at the city. He watched breathlessly for several long moments until the four red bolts splattered against an invisible energy shield and dissipated.

"Break off the attack!" Arren called frantically. "The shield is still up!"

"I get no reading," Gippal answered. "You sure?"

"Pull up! All craft, pull up!"

Even as he gave those orders, Arren jerked his control stick to the left and pulled back hard, acceleration forces crushing him back into his seat as he peeled away from the still-protected city and back the opposite direction. All around him, Jedi starfighters and LAAT/i's also frantically peeled away from the city, and further back, the larger ships began to awkwardly turn away as well.

"Take evasive action!" Nooj called. "Green Group, stick close to holding sector MV-7."

"Nooj," Baralai's voice called out from another ship. "We have enemy ships in Sector 47."

"It's a trap!"

Still in the lead of the Spiran formation, Arren found himself flying his X-wing directly toward close to a hundred Imperial Carrack-class cruisers and ancient Dreadnoughts, the only large-scale combat vehicles that the Imperials could use in-atmosphere.

"Fighters, coming in!"

From ahead, a wall of TIE fighters of every make; standard, Interceptor, and bombers, flew head-on into the Spiran fleet, their green laser beams already seeking out targets amongst the mixed group.

"There's too many of them!" a pilot called, just seconds before Arren watched a friendly blip disappear from his sensor screen.

"Accelerate to attack speed," Arren ordered as he brought his X-wing around in pursuit of a group of TIE Interceptors. "Draw their fire away from the cruisers."

"Copy, Gold Leader."

Arren shot down toward the Airship, his quad-linked lasers drilling straight into the twin ion engines of a TIE Interceptor and exploding the vehicle magnificently. He then pulled up and away from the cruiser, three TIE fighters following quickly in his wake.

---

The Imperial squadron led Tidus' group out of the shield bunker into a completely different scene than the one they had departed. An AT-ST walker had its blasters trained on the bunker entrance, the pilot standing in the topside hatch. Another pair of walkers were patrolling the Thunder Plains behind them. Nearly fifty Imperial troops were arrayed outside the bunker, many of them guarding the other members of Tidus' team, including Stev, still dressed as a scout trooper sans helmet.

"All right, move it!" one of the stormtroopers near Tidus said, ushering the group forward. "Keep moving, come on!"

The stormtroopers forced the group from inside the bunker into a rough line, along with the Spiran soldiers who had been caught outside. Yuna had an idea bouncing around the back of her head as to what the Imperials were doing, but her confusion was cleared beyond a shadow of a doubt when twenty-five stormtroopers lined up in front of them and trained their blasters on the Spirans.

Yuna closed her eyes, held them shut for a long moment, then opened them at the same time she reached over and took Tidus' hand. They looked toward each other at the same moment, and she knew that he was also aware of what was happening.

This was almost exactly like her nightmare…

---

Lenne gasped loudly, stumbling back against the edge of Vegnagun's cockpit as though she had been physically struck. Shuyin's playing ended suddenly with a painful clash of notes as he heard her gasp. Standing up, the blond man reached out and grabbed Lenne by the arm to keep her from falling.

"Lenne, what's wrong?" he asked.

The long-haired songstress turned toward him, tears streaming down her face. "Yuna and Tidus! The Empire is going to execute them!"

Shuyin's expression darkened, and he reached down with his free hand and drew his sword. "Not if we can do anything about it. Remember your new song?"

She blinked for a moment, then nodded slowly as realization dawned on her. "Yes…"

He slid his hand down her arm until he tightly held her hand in his then, as one, they faded from the heart of the Farplane.

---

As the stormtroopers prepared to fire their weapons, every Imperial and Spiran soldier paused, each of them hearing the same music in their minds. After a few moments, the Imperials shook off their confusion, despite still hearing the music, and returned their attention to the task at hand. As they did so, they noticed a glowing form had appeared between them and the rebel group.

The form materialized and solidified into Shuyin, standing before the Imperials in his fighting stance, sword drawn. Yet he made no move to attack. As he stood there, amazingly enough, a number of browned and dead leaves began to fall in front of the rebel group.

"When leaves have fallen and skies turned to gray…"

As those melodic words rang out across the Thunder Plains, the leaves all erupted into blue spheres of light, Protect shields that surrounded the Rebel forces.

Yuna turned her head to the left, looking to the side of the shield bunker where Lenne stood, her summoning staff in hand and used as a microphone through which she was singing the words of her song.

"The night keeps on closing in on the day."

A number of Imperial forces suddenly cried out in surprise and stumbled away from where they were standing, clutching at their helmets or their eyes. Some of them seemed to have clouds of darkness surrounding their heads, and Yuna knew instinctively that they had been inflicted with a Darkness spell.

"A nightingale sings his song of farewell.
You'd better hide for her freezing hell."

Lenne's dark eyes flashed as she sung those words, and another group of Imperials suddenly erupted into flames, moments later to be frozen in their places. As this happened, Shuyin suddenly moved forward, running toward the centermost stormtrooper in the firing line.

He rolled into a cartwheel, his sword striking sparks against the rocks, then immediately went into a front-flip upon landing, bringing his sword up and smashing it down on that luckless stormtrooper, who fell back to the rocky ground with a cleave from his throat to his crotch.

A general melee erupted as Tidus reached behind him, grabbing the arm of a stormtrooper standing behind him and swinging the white-armored man into a rocky outcrop. Several of the noncombatant Imperial forces ran back toward the shield bunker as the Rebels suddenly turned on their would-be captors.

"On cold wings, she's coming,
You'd better keep moving.
For warmth, you'll be longing.
Come on, just feel it.
Don't you see it?
You'd better believe!"

Kimahri quickly spun around, lifting a stormtrooper bodily and throwing him back into another of his comrades. Rikku ran forward, kicking down a stormtrooper and raising her blaster pistol, sighting in and firing at the pilot of the Imperial walker, her brilliant shot pitching the Imperial officer backwards over the side of the vehicle.

From all sides of them, fiends suddenly rose up from behind the rocks, diving forward and attacking the Imperial forces. Several of the fiends immediately broke away and began moving into the depths of the Thunder Plains, luring the Imperial forces out after them. Scout troopers shot into the plains on speeder bikes by the handful.

"When she embraces,
Your heart turns to stone.
She comes at night when you're all alone.
And when she whispers,
Your blood shall run cold.
You better hide before she finds you!"

A half-dozen stormtroopers froze in their tracks, their soft flesh and tissue replaced by solid stone. As one of the surviving stormtroopers ran in terror away from the songstress, Tidus ducked his shoulder and caught the man at the knees, lifting up and tossing the soldier over his back. At the same time, he came up with a blaster pistol in hand and ran toward the shield bunker.

Yuna was already at the bunker, firing her blaster pistol out at the stormtroopers. She stopped as Tidus approached, pressing her back up against the closing doors of the shield bunker.

"Be gone!" Shuyin called as he ran forward, slashing his sword against a stormtrooper, cutting clean through the armor and flesh of the man's gut. Dead or dying, the stormtrooper fell to the ground as Shuyin skidded to a halt, then turned and sliced open a second stormtrooper's back with the backswing. He continued in that manner, taking down another three stormtroopers before finally stopping and looking around for more targets.

A Rebel soldier ran through a field of exploding blaster bolts all around him, taking shelter behind a broken communications dish. As the stormtroopers continued to rain fire on him, Paine ran up behind them, dressed in full stormtrooper armor, and fired her blaster at full power, point-blank range into the Imperials' backs.

"The code's changed," Yuna said, attempting to get the doors open. "We need Rikku."

"Whenever she is raging,
She takes all life away.
Haven't you seen?
Haven't you seen
The ruins of our world?"

Twenty more Imperials simply dropped dead where they stood, their life forces stolen from them by the words of Lenne's song. Many of the surviving stormtroopers began concentrating their fire on her, but to no effect as the bolts simply passed through her and began gouging holes in the bunker wall.

"Rikku, where are you?" Yuna called into her comlink. "We need you at the bunker."

"I'm on the way!" the Al Bhed girl's voice replied, sounding strained as blaster fire filtered into the background of her message.

In the plains around the shield bunker, the Imperial walkers continued to pursue the fiends and scattered Rebel soldiers, firing their chin-mounted blaster turrets at any that came within sight.

---

Arren's X-wing narrowly dodged a burst of laser fire as he shot past one of their sea-bound transports, an explosion flaring up on the left side of the ship as a TIE fighter impacted with the ocean surface and detonated.

"Watch yourself, Gippal," he said. "Three from above."

"Red Three, Red Two, pull in," Gippal said in response, flying in on Arren's wake.

"Got it," answered another Al Bhed pilot.

A Jedi starfighter passing over the Celsius exploded under the concentrated fire of two TIE fighters. Moments later, Red Three's LAAT/i swooped in on the TIE fighters' tails, firing its forward laser cannons at the Imperial fighters. One exploded under his fire; the other one, spooked by the sudden attack, evaded down directly into Celsius's deflector shield, exploding on impact.

"Three of them coming in," Red Three said. "Twenty degrees."

"Cut to the left, I'll take the leader," Gippal answered.

Gippal's Jedi starfighter cut hard in behind a TIE interceptor as Red Three moved to intercept its wingman. The one-eyed man's steady stream of laser bolts finally connected with the rear of the interceptor, causing it to detonate as he pulled up toward the underside of the Celsius.

Gippal cut hard as he neared the airship, easily avoiding the green bursts of the interceptor trailing him. That pilot, unable to react as quickly as he had, drove into the shields protecting the ship's right rear engine.

"They're heading for the medical frigate," Gippal said.

Another Jedi starfighter raced past the frigate in question, three TIE interceptors on its tail. Suddenly, the rearmost interceptor exploded under Arren's laser fire. Startled by the sudden attack from the rear, the two surviving squints broke to the left and under the frigate, as the Jedi starfighter they had been pursuing veered off to the right.

Remaining doggedly on their collective tail, Arren dispatched one of the squints with a proton torpedo, then curved around the top hull of the frigate and fired two quad-linked laser bursts at the one remaining squint. As he came around beneath the Airship, he noticed that the big Imperial cruisers were still hanging back, not attacking.

"Only the fighters are attacking," he said to himself. "I wonder what those cruisers are waiting for."

Without taking any more time to ponder that, he arced away and back toward the battlefield.

Suddenly, without warning, a huge green burst of energy shot out of Bevelle, impaling one of their bigger transports and detonating it in a huge explosion that momentarily left stars in the eyes of all nearby pilots.

"That blast came from Bevelle," Arren muttered. "That thing's operational!" He reached down and keyed his comlink. "Airship, this is Gold Leader."

"We saw it," Nooj replied. "All craft, prepare to retreat."

"You won't get another chance at this, Admiral."

"We have no choice, Commander Vale. Our cruisers can't repel firepower of that magnitude."

"Lady Yuna will have that shield down," the Rebel pilot said, determination flowing over the comm waves from his voice. "We've got to give them more time!"

---

Five stormtroopers, having taken shelter behind a fallen rock precipice, poured heavy suppression fire against the bunker. Jake, pressed against the bunker wall and pinned in place by the heavy fire, couldn't get around to the shelter of the bunker door. He simply kept himself pressed against the wall as much as he could and continued to pour fire against the enemies.

Suddenly, four Lightning Elementals drifted up behind the unsuspecting stormtroopers, electrical energy already arcing and sparking between their disjointed limbs. All at once, the four Elementals released their gathered energy, striking down the stormtroopers with a loud boom echoing over the area.

"I'm coming!" Yuna heard Rikku call out. She looked up as the Al Bhed girl suddenly threw herself behind a rock to avoid the blaster fire coming in at her.

Tidus leaned out from the shelter of the doorway and sighted in with his blaster pistol, burning a neat hole through the head of the stormtrooper that had been trying to tag Rikku. Her path now cleared, the blonde girl jumped up and quickly dashed the rest of the way to the bunker.

The thief took one look at the control panel and shook her head. "I'll have to hot-wire it. Cover me!"

Nodding, Tidus and Yuna moved to the edge of the bunker and began picking shots at nearby stormtroopers. Looking around, Yuna carefully scanned the area with the Force until her eyes fell on what she was searching for.

Her lightsaber was clutched in the hand of a petrified stormtrooper a dozen feet away from her, out in the open where there was no cover.

"Don't interfere!" Shuyin's voice echoed out again.

Yuna looked up as the blond man ran forward and jumped up, kicking off the helmet of a stormtrooper and rising up into the air, his sword gathering energy as he did so. At the apex of his upward motion, he swung the sword down toward the stormtroopers, and several balls of energy shot out of his sword and smashed into the ground, exploding with the force of a half-dozen thermal detonators and scattering the dead or dying troopers in all directions.

"She covers the earth with a breathtaking cloak.
The sun awakes and melts it away.
The world now opens its eyes and sees,
The dawning of a new day."

Another group of stormtroopers near the shield bunker suddenly stopped attacking and fell down against the ground where they stood. Yuna could still sense their life essences in the Force, and knew that they had merely been put to sleep, instead of killed.

Taking her opportunity, Yuna ran forward, using the Force to boost her speed, and dropped to a knee beside the dead stormtrooper. She pried her weapon free of the man's grasp, then turned and ran to stand in front of Lenne, igniting the lightsaber and deflecting a blaster bolt back to the stormtrooper who had fired it.

---

Another green superlaser blast lanced out of Bevelle, detonating a straggling transport as the remaining ships of the Rebel fleet darted away from the city in a blind panic.

"Yes, I said closer!" Arren spoke into the comlink as his X-wing rocked from near misses of the Carrack-class cruisers' turbolaser fire. "Move as close as you can and engage those Carrack cruisers at point blank range!"

"At that range, we won't last long against those cruisers," Nooj replied.

"We'll last longer than we will against that superlaser. And we might just take a few of them with us."

Arren led the Rebel squadron over the centerline of the nearest Carrack cruiser, sideslipping and dodging to avoid the fire of both the Imperial gunners and the trailing TIE fighters.

"She's gonna blow!" came a frantic cry over the comlink, as a flaming Jedi starfighter that had clipped the edge of the Carrack's bridge spun through space moments before exploding. Simultaneously, the cruiser's bridge exploded under the combined fire of the following Rebel fighters.

"I'm hit!" a LAAT/i pilot cried out, spiraling down toward the command tower of a second cruiser as the two TIE fighters that had been pursuing it broke off in search of other prey. Several soldiers in the LAAT/i leapt out, engaging their jetpacks to slow their descent as they dropped into the ocean below. Above them, the doomed gunship crashed into the cruiser's shield, not doing significant damage.

---

Kimahri and two Rebel soldiers came around a ridge line overlooking the battlefield below. One of the soldiers pointed at a distant walker, but Kimahri shook his head and pointed at another one that would pass close by the outcrop they were standing upon.

Scant moments later, the pilot of the AT-ST felt a thumping from on top of his walker, but shrugged it off and continued moving the vehicle forward. Suddenly, one of the Rebel troops leaned over the open viewport and made an obscene gesture at the pilot.

"Look!" the copilot said, pointing at the Rebel.

"Get him off of there," the pilot replied.

Standing up, the copilot unlatched the top hatch and pushed it open, drawing his blaster pistol as he did so. Before he could move, however, a clawed hand reached in and grabbed the man by his collar, pulling him bodily out of the walker and throwing him over its side.

The two Rebel soldiers dropped in, one of them blasting the pilot in the back of the head, then took over the pilot and copilot seats. Kimahri, who had not yet gotten into the walker, was nearly thrown from atop the vehicle when it lurched into motion again. Growling, he lowered himself into the cramped cockpit and pulled the hatch closed above him.

Ahead of them, another Imperial walker was slowly advancing, blasting at fiends with every step. As soon as their walker cleared a rocky outcrop, the Rebel pilot triggered the blasters, sending four scarlet bolts of energy into the weak spot where the boxy cockpit met with the rotating actuator. The cockpit of the walker exploded spectacularly, causing noises of appreciation from the fiends who had been under its fire moments before.

As the fiends turned back on the Imperial soldiers that had been following them, the hijacked walker continued forward, the pilot and copilot firing their weapons whenever they caught a flash of stormtrooper armor in their crosshairs. Imperial troops fell by the dozens around them.

In another area of the Thunder Plains, another scout walker turned a corner and came face to face with 8 meters of enchanted armor wielding a bigass sword. The Iron Giant's eyes flashed yellow as its prey appeared before it, and the driver of the Imperial walker halted his forward momentum, staring out the viewport at this creature that looked to be able to challenge their walker.

Without warning, the Iron Giant swung its sword, the heavy hilt of the weapon smashing into the side of the walker's cockpit and crushing it between sword and the rock wall that the walker had just come around.

A short distance away, a humanoid fiend intentionally smashed through a large rock, triggering a rockslide down toward the last of the rampaging Imperial walkers. Unable to check its forward momentum, the walker lost its footing amidst the tumbling stones and quickly attempted to regain its equillibrium. Failing to do so, it listed heavily to its left side and collapsed, the cockpit exploding as it did so.

"Whenever she is raging,
She takes all life away.
Haven't you seen?
Haven't you seen
The ruins of our world?"

As Lenne's words slowly died out at the end of her song, the last group of stormtroopers attempting to flush the Rebels away from the shield bunker paused for a moment, then continued on their attack. Not two minutes later, the lot of them had all collapsed over dead following the effects of the Doom status.

"I think I've got it," Rikku said as she deftly stripped two wires and crossed them together. "I've got it!"

No sooner had she said those words than the heavy blast doors slid shut, further barring them from getting inside. For a moment, Rikku looked as if she was about to cry, then she suddenly swore, "Cred!"

As if to further underscore her bad luck, a stray blaster bolt hit the side of the bunker and, reduced in power, blew through to tag Rikku in her right arm. Screaming in pain, she fell to the ground and pushed herself up against the sheltering wall. Yuna quickly spotted the stormtrooper that had fired that shot and drew back her right arm, reaching deep into the Force. She flung her lightsaber out, the same way that Vader had done to her, and was rewarded with seeing the glowing blue-green blade imbed itself in the forehead of the stormtrooper.

"Freeze!" a filtered voice called. Yuna turned around to see two stormtroopers training their blasters on Tidus and Rikku. "Don't move."

Tidus' body was blocking Rikku from the stormtroopers' view, and Yuna sensed through the Force that Rikku was planning something. She glanced down to her own guns holstered at her hips.

"Hands up," the stormtrooper said, which Tidus obeyed. "Stand up."

The moment Tidus got to his feet, Rikku's blaster flashed into line and she blasted the first stormtrooper in the chest, flinging him back away from them. Before the second one could react, Yuna drew her gun and fired, the heavy armor-piercing bullet smashing through the side of the stormtrooper's head, spinning him away as he dropped.

And then an AT-ST marched up to the shield bunker and came to a halt, lowering its blasters at the entrance. Swearing, Tidus raised his hands again.

But instead of blasting them into oblivion, the top hatch opened and Kimahri raised himself into view, a smug expression on his face.

"Kimahri!" Yuna said gladly.

"Get down here, she's wounded!" Tidus said, pointing to Rikku. Then he quickly held up his hand to the walker. "No, wait!" He lowered his gaze and met eyes with Yuna. "I have a plan."

---

A spinning TIE fighter, completely awash with flames, slammed into the shields protecting the command tower of a Carrack-class cruiser as a Jedi starfighter shot through the fireball and around the side of the tower.

Arren's X-wing roared off in the other direction, leisurely cruising up behind a Carrack cruiser as TIE fighters shot past the snubfighter. "Watch out, squad at .06."

"I'm on it, Gold Leader," the pilot of another Jedi starfighter replied as he dropped in on a TIE interceptor's rear and neatly blew the fighter out of the skies.

"Good shot, Red Two," Gippal said, as he followed the Jedi starfighter through the corridor of fire going back and forth between a Carrack cruiser and their own medical frigate.

"We're sure in the middle of it now," Arren said as he passed over the Airship yet again. "Come on, Lady Yuna, don't let me down."

---

Lenne had moved and was now standing in front of the door into the shield bunker, lowered halfway into a crouch. Shuyin, his sword stabbed into the corpse of the last stormtrooper he had killed, was standing behind her, his arms wrapped around her as he held her tightly to him. The stolen Imperial walker stood directly behind them.

Tidus, wearing the helmet of a dead Imperial pilot, stood off to the side of the shield bunker and spoke into a comlink which he was holding up to conceal most of his face. "It's over, Commander. The Rebels have been routed and they're fleeing toward the woods. We need reinforcements to continue the pursuit."

As the blitzer received an affirmative message from the man inside, Shuyin leaned forward and whispered into Lenne's ear, "I've got you. Let's end this so that we can rest."

"Yes," Lenne answered, cupping her left hand out in front of her. "Let this be their ultimate end."

Shuyin also reached out his hand, cupping it with hers, as a faint white orb began glowing between their palms.

A few seconds later, the rear doors slid open and thirty-six Imperial troops jogged out of the bunker, only to be blinded by the intense beacon of light that had formed from the small orb. The light was so intense that Shuyin and Lenne could not be seen from any side.

Before the Imperials could figure out what to do, an intense beam of pure energy shot from their hands, instantly vaporizing the hapless Imperial troopers, and passing completely through them to burn away the upper half of the shield bunker.

As the Rebel group regained their vision and ran into the bunker with thanks to the couple, Lenne and Shuyin leaned heavily on each other, their ultimate dual attack having drained them.

"They no longer need us," Shuyin said. "We must return to the Farplane."

Too tired for words, Lenne merely nodded, holding tightly to her lover as they faded back to the heart of the Farplane.

Inside the shield bunker, the rebel group went around the control room carefully placing their explosive charges.

"Throw me another charge," Tidus said. He easily caught the tossed explosive, then reached up and planted it beside a fire extinguishing system before activating the timer.

Two minutes later found the rebel group running full-speed out of the shield bunker, with Tidus in the lead shouting "Move! Move!"

As he leaped behind a rocky outcropping that Yuna was also taking shelter behind, the open door of the shield bunker belched out ardent fire. A massive explosion could be heard from deep within the shield bunker as the entire Thunder Plains rumbled violently.

---

"The shield is down!" Nooj called over the comm waves. "Commence attack on Bevelle!"

"We're on our way," Arren replied, turning his X-wing toward the city and kicking his fuzial-thrust engines up to full speed. "Red Group, Gold Group, all transports follow me." He paused for a moment to laugh out loud, then said, "I told you they'd do it!"

Airship and Celsius turned back toward Bevelle, the LAAT/i's of the Spiran fleet and Arren's X-wing leading the way.


A/N: Ladies and gents, the final battle has begun! From here on in there will be nothing but more blatant ripoffs of the awesomest motherfucking combat scenes that I have ever stumbled upon in my life. Let's get it on!