So here it goes, darlings, I apologize that it's been so long!

…...

Lenne rushes franticly after Auron as he exits her home. She hurriedly grabs at one of her silken dresses, and replaces her lover's shirt with the dress and cries, "Please, slow down!" He pays her no heed and continues on walking; his gait has a light limp. Exasperated she lunges after him out the door, cork sandals held firmly in one hand, and her staff in the other, causing her knuckles to turn white. "Would you wait-"

She staggers and falls against his shoulder, her face rubbing against the heavy canvas-like material of his scarlet coat. The man holds her wrist to stop her from falling any further and helps her right herself before announcing, "There's no time to slow down. Contact the other summoners and meet me at the docks."

Finally she stops pursuing him and looks around, completely at a loss of what to do. In times like this Shuyin had always been there doing something to make her sure that nothing would happen to them, but now that protection was gone, and he would not be able to help her. Watching the people pass by, giving her looks of disapproval, she falters in what to do once again and scans the cobblestone street for Auron; he was nowhere to be seen. Her lips form a thin line- none of these people knew what was coming.

In a final assessment of the situation she pulls on her sandals and runs further into the city, her feet carry her to a shop she knows has a phone and she begins begging for allowance to use it. From the moment she crashes through the door, the people assume she is in labor, much to her dismay. Multiple people offer to call the nearest white mage or clinic, but still she insists on using the phone trying to force them away. Standing there, looking disheveled and horrified, she slams her staff on the counter, "Enemy machina are about to attack, and I need that phone- PLEASE!" The shopkeeper looks at her as a woman insane, holding her hands close to her chest in surprise, and a tinge of fear.

"Wh-what?"

Lenne repeats her words again, "There are enemy machina coming in from the sea." She was clearly on edge, her eyes glassy and the violet hue dulled. Sighing she casts her gaze to the black sphere-like object resting behind the counter, a "phone." "Please, I have to tell the other summoners. Everyone will die if we don't do something!" At this the woman surrenders the black sphere, and Lenne immediately sends a message out to the police who will in turn contact the nearest military units.

Feeling rushed by the now frantic faces around her, she requests the transferrer to connect her to all the summoners throughout the city. Now, you see, black spheres or, "phones," in Zanarkand work more like a series of radios rather than telephones. Black spheres had the ability to be linked to others and could link to a limitless amount of them at once; in other words, they were not for conversation, they were made specifically for sending messages one way. Lenne was currently on a sphere that was being linked to around a hundred or so others.

The sphere starts to glow gold, the signal for her to speak, and she announces, "Summoners of Zanarkand, the war is moving, we are being invaded by sea. I repeat we are being invaded by sea. We must hold them back, reach the harbor as-" The sphere cuts off suddenly, followed by a thunderous boom somewhere outside. Lenne drops the sphere, fear-stricken, and stares as a building crumbles and a fireball streaks into the air; firey debris rains down on the people in the immediate vicinity. Everyone in the store erupts into terror, racing for the door, driven mad by fear.

Lenne covers her head and sinks to the floor, cowering as the people rush in all directions around her, all shrieking inaudible words. She huddles against the shop counter, praying no one will trample her and her unborn baby. Without realizing it, she finds herself screaming Shuyin's name and nearly begins to cry; she was alone now, and she knew without him she was a coward. She reaches up and gropes blindly for her staff on the counter top. Her fingers brush the metal and she grasps at it- someone slams into her arm in their flight, less than a fraction of a second later, and a searing pain shoots through it, translating all the way up to her shoulder and straight down her back. Hurriedly she tries again, her fingers numb, and barely manages to get her hand around it.

With the staff at her disposal she stands, careful to dodge the few people still trying to flee, and sprints out the door into the street. Her arm remains numb and the pain to move it is unbearable, all too late she realizes her shoulder is dislocated. Another explosion wracks the earth, much too close for her comfort, and she staggers in the aftershock, crying out in surprise. Another wave of people fly by her, shoving her to and fro; she pushes against them to reach an alley where she can rest, fleeing was not important now- she had to get to the harbor. Soot and fire fall from the sky like rain, buildings everywhere were on fire or collapsed altogether, everyone had splotches of the black substance all over them.

Time was running out, the bombs the machina were firing were meant to do drastic damage, and two had already flushed out most of the district; other, much smaller, explosions alerted her that there was more than bombs being fired, the rapid succession of the hits proved the origin was from a large gatling-gun of some sort. Lenne rails in pain thinking, "I have to fix it." She takes in a sharp breath and jams her eyes shut, slamming her shoulder against the stone wall. She screams. Her blood churns from the horrific sensation and she doubles over, fighting the urge to thrash about and vomit. Violet eyes wide in fear, she rubs at her shoulder; it was back in place, but a horrible sting remained.

Minutes pass like this, with her doubled over, trying to mentally reclaim herself with the assurance that Shuyin will come for her in time. Finally she slumps against the wall and forces herself to stand, Auron was counting on her. Stone scrapes along her back as she gets up and tries to breathe, still wincing from the throbbing in her shoulder. Closing her eyes she sorts through her thought patterns and begins a summon. Writhing in her mind she finds the image of Ifrit and allows him to be summoned. He claws his way from her subconscious and howls. Light glows around her, creating the grid that frees the aeons, and then begins circulating, along with multiple other smaller versions of it around her. The light grows brighter, to a point almost blinding, and Ifrit tears his way up out of the earth in the immense light, still roaring.

Lenne leans against his warm ebony fur, completely drained of her energy. Ifrit nuzzles her affectionately, then turns his back to her, allowing her to climb on and cling to him as best she can. She mutters under her breath, "the harbor..." too exhausted to say any more. The aeon shifts his weight impatiently as a bomb goes off in the distance; that was a third. Finally he lunges forward, running through the streets, jumping over crowds, and across rooftops whenever necessary.

-----

Through the snowstorm Shuyin continued on, the Mithra girl still in tow close behind him. His ocean filled eyes constantly scanned the iced paths below theirs, searching for the machina that had been stolen from them. Kataa watches his expression range from agony to flat out hate; she had no idea why he wanted her with him. The storm here was worse than on the mountaintop, which had been mostly above the clouds, this was directly inside the foggy, cotton-appearing objects. She yells above the roaring wind, "How far ahead do you think they've gone? They usually don't move this fast."

Shuyin glances back at her, his hair being thrown about in its half-frozen state. "They must be just around the curve of the mountain- we'll find them." His voice wavers; he was more worried about Lenne than how far ahead the machina were. Both sigh angrily and continue trudging through the thigh deep, heavy snow.

Kataa takes note that he was right about having to go on foot; the paths here were so narrow it would have been hard for them to even walk side by side. Her white-mage cloak flaps up in her face and she fights it back down, fastening it to her belt- her movement stops when her ears pick up the faint sound of a large bomb going off. "Shuyin…"

Having heard the sound himself he visibly pales. He lunges forward through the white icy mass, "Those were gunners I saw, not bombers- there are more on the other side of the city." Kataa has to try and sprint in his tracks to keep up with him in his frustration.

"We can't stop a machina that huge, and we'll never get there in time, you idiot." She growls.

"Shut up."

"I mean it, we'll both get killed."

He snaps, "I said shut up. Neither of us are dying." She glares and continues to allow him to drag her forward.

As soon as they reach the backside of the mountain, the glimpse of a band of animal-like machina rewards them. Shuyin drops her wrist and draws his sword, "Keep them from running," he shouts as he crashes through icicles to reach them. She panics and runs in his wake, rushing to think of a spell to stop them. Hurriedly she decides to cast a simple paralyze spell, doing her best to focus on them as she sprints, barely able to see her targets. She looks clearly relieved when she sees five or six frozen in place. Shuyin cries back at her, "Stop the others, do whatever it takes." Desperate to catch her breath, she nods and jumps up onto the icy rock wall that is the mountain, and begins jumping from ledge to ledge to catch them faster.

Shuyin's sword engulfs in flames as he comes down on the first machina, it was small, clearly not the control; his attack burns through it in an instant; two more follow in its demise. Not wanting to waste all his energy on these, he shoves the rest off the path while they remain paralyzed, sending them careening to a rock bed hundreds of feet below. Gasping for breath in the thin air he gazes to where Kataa was only minutes before. He swings his sword, sending out a fire spell across the snow in front of him, instantly evaporating most of it. It would refreeze quickly.

Still out of breath he runs forward, watching his footing on the flash-frozen area he just cleared. The Mithra was sitting upon a rock, casting spell after spell of Holy, Dia, and Paralyze on the machina below her- she looked tired and in a super-focused state. Shuyin desperately rushes in to her aid; there were around sixty machina in all, and these were considerably stronger than the others she had stopped, thus the reason it was so hard to keep them paralyzed. Unsure if the fall would destroy them, sword attacks mix with his red mage abilities as he begins knocking them off one or two at a time.

Both fight to keep them from awakening, and it was getting harder. Quite suddenly they all stop working and fall into the ice and snow; Shuyin and Kataa stop just as suddenly, not knowing what to expect. A man, dressed clearly as a soldier of Bevelle, jumps from the control seat of a machina, he was alone. Using barely a second of hesitation, Shuyin runs headlong into combat, his sword glowing from the fiery magic about it. The Mithra, however, realizes this is a dreadful mistake, and takes in a quick, panicked breath. "Black mage!"

Shuyin hears her too late, and has a burst of purple and black matter fly into his face, slamming him to the ground in dismay. He was pinned- gravity was, quite literally, working its magic. Kataa throws herself from the cliffside, twisting in midair, to latch onto the black mage. A raged hiss escapes her the moment before she locks her jaws down on the man's shoulder. The man reels, trying to shove the Mithra woman away, his magic momentarily delayed. Managing to break through his invisible bonds, Shuyin rolls and rushes the man again, this time knowing he was distracted. Somewhere far off another bomb sounded.

The sword runs through the black mage with enough force to send him nearly off the cliff edge- Kataa along with him. Shuyin latches his unused hand onto her belt in a frantic attempt to keep her from slipping from the iced edge, the black mage was determined to take them down with him. All three begin to slide from the cliff edge, the Mithra in a full-blown panic, the rapid drop staring her down. Whipping his sword from the man's body, he tries to use it as a brace against a rock to keep them from falling further; the mage was still clinging to the Mithra-girl's legs as the supports of rock and ice beneath his feet finally vanished. The sudden jerk of the extra weight tore at the muscles in the blond's arm, and it ripped at him to the point of silent biting at the thin air. Kataa shrieked and flung her lower limbs about in attempts to drop the enemy black mage away- though mortally wounded he refused to fall to his death just yet.

Shuyin clung to his sword, momentarily jammed between a grouping of snow-covered rocks, gasping and fighting to lessen the pull on his arm. A decade passed in those few short seconds before the mage fell, and when he finally let go a wash of flame enveloped the cat-like female. Immediately she was flung into the snow and rolled- much of her fur, however, was still heavily blackened in areas- by Shuyin, whose arm was rendered close to useless for the moment as the muscle spasmed angrily at his use of it. Affirming the damage was not excessive, Shuyin rushes to the cliff edge again to see where the black mage landed, and that he indeed was dead. As expected the man was deceased, impaled, in fact, on a stone spire far below.

Kataa shudders and wails, "You almost let him burn me alive!"

He glances back at her, his arm stiff, "Well at least you didn't fall. How was I to know he still had enough energy to cast the damn thing?!" He glares, his irises paling.

Kataa sits up slowly, holding in her further comments to maintain the momentary peace between them. The third bomb reverberates and both stare uselessly in the direction of Zanarkand; time was not on their side. Not at all.

….....

Sorry it took me so long to update, everyone! I've been working on this for a while, and I'm never exactly happy with it, so I figured I might as well just post it for the sake of making sure you all know that I do get your messages, and that I am listening!!! I do live! Not dead yet!

So. Here she be. Hope you all find it satisfactory for the time being. Suggestions are welcome...and appearances of other characters from the other Final Fantasy games is a possibility, if anyone so desires a special appearance of their personal favorite, of course.

That's all for now, I suppose. Oh! And if anyone thinks I should edit some of the earlier chapters I completely understand your wishes...Message me if you've got requests or suggestions. ^_^