Chapter 24: Operation Rescue

Looking back on it later, Charlene never would remember exactly how much time passed when she prepared herself for the inevitable assault on Bevelle. Time seemed to move in leaps at one moment, and crawled at a snail's pace the next, but eventually, she made her way back to the bridge to rejoin the others. Once there, the young guardian voiced the question that had floated in the back of her mind since they saw Yuna in that image with Seymour. "How did Yuna end up all the way in Bevelle, when the rest of us ended up on the island?"

"One of the Guado squads found her out in the Sanubia Desert," Cid bluntly replied, before going back to…whatever it was he was doing.

Charlie pondered that for a moment, and then turned her attention to Rikku and Auron. "What's Seymour doing alive?" the blond thief asked. "Didn't we take care of him back in Macalania?"

"That's a very good question. Why did he come back? I thought those who weren't sent became fiends. Of course…Seymour was the human equivalent of a fiend anyway, so I guess it wasn't that big a stretch for him…"

"He is dead," Auron replied, interrupting Charlie's thoughts. "As dead as Jyscal was. His attachment to this world kept him from the next."

"Whoa, scary!" Rikku exclaimed, shuddering slightly.

"That's nice and all, but why would Yuna agree to go with the Guado?" Charlie wanted to know. "I mean, she could have just summoned an aeon and flattened them all, right?"

"Yuna must be trying to send him," the swordsman answered, not looking at her.

"I wonder if that will work…" Rikku trailed off thoughtfully.

"Perhaps he won't expect it."

With that, Auron fell silent and refused to speak again, so Charlie turned her attention to Wakka and Lulu. "I'm glad Yuna's okay and all, but what's with those fancy clothes?" the blitzer asked.

"It's called a wedding dress," Lulu replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What?"

When no more explanations were forthcoming, Wakka just shook his head and sighed, but did not say anything else. Charlie started to speak to him, but then the ship shook violently as the ear-piercing cacophony of several different fiends' cries rang through the corridor. Just as the shrieking subsided, Rin strolled onto the bridge. "We're being attacked from within," he explained as calmly as if he discussed the weather. "Some of the Guado that attacked Home must have snuck on board."

"Thank you for that startling revelation, oh wise one!" Charlie thought to herself "We NEVER would have figured that out on our own!"

"You're awfully calm about it!" Cid sneered as the ship trembled again.

"I am calm about most things," Rin simply replied.

"Fiends! There's nothing to do but…"

"Destroy the ship and all go down together!" Rikku interrupted, using a comical impersonation of her dad's "cowboy" accent. When he gave her a startled look and fell silent, she shook her head and sighed, "You gotta learn a little restraint, Pops. If we crash the ship, we can't go rescue Yunie!" Then she stood next to Charlie, took on a heroic pose, and said, "Leave the fiends to us professionals!"

"Yeah, so kindly back away from the self-destruct button and let us deal with the monsters, Mr. Trigger-Happy," the swordswoman added, her blue eyes dancing with amusement at the Al Bhed leader's crestfallen look.

"Thanks," Rikku cheered, beaming at Charlie.

"Rikku, you've made some very good friends, I think," Rin said, clapping both girls on the shoulder.

Then the merchant bade everyone farewell and headed out the door. "Well…" Auron began, with a feral gleam in his eye as he shouldered his katana and strode toward the door, "Shall we get started then?"

…

Some time, and many fiend battles later, the group arrived in the cabin area of the ship, and stopped to take a brief rest before finishing off the rest of the swarm. Then Auron glanced out the window and commented, "Huh, now there's a rare sight."

"What is?" Charlie asked, before looking out the window. Outside and flying parallel to the ship was a huge, serpentine dragon with a pink body, a blue-grey underbelly, iridescent purple wings, and a yellow mane streaming from its silver horns all the way down its back. "Holy shit!" she exclaimed, nearly falling over backwards in surprise.

"What is that?" Rikku shrieked.

"The guardian wyrm, Evrae," Lulu gasped, staring at the dragon as it dove out of sight below the clouds. "The great sacred beast...protector of Bevelle!"

"It looks like Puff the Fairy Dragon to me!"

"The red carpet has teeth," Auron chuckled.

Charlie blinked, staring at the swordsman in complete disbelief. "Auron…was that a JOKE I just heard?" she asked incredulously. "I think I've lived to see the End of Days…or someone spiked my water or something."

Before Auron could answer her, however, Cid's voice crackled out over the intercom. "Rikku, you read me?" he barked. "We're going to fight that thing, so get on deck and show him what you've got!"

When the intercom fell silent again, the Al Bhed sighed, "There he goes again."

"The ferryman asks a high price," Auron said, heading toward the hatch.

"Wait a minute! You mean we're going outside?" Charlie asked, her face growing pale.

"Is that a problem?"

"Uh…well…I just happen to have this severe dislike of being on the outside of something that's flying ten thousand feet in the air at speeds that only giant flying pansy-snakes can match!"

"Too late to back out now!" Rikku said, giving her friend a sympathetic look. "Pops just volunteered us, so we'd better get moving."

"Oh dear God, I think I'm going to be sick!"

By some strange miracle, Charlie managed to avoid having a messy accident on the elevator, although she did look a little green when they finally emerged on the deck. Wakka looked at Charlie as if he wanted to say something, but then Evrae drew close and hissed at them all, forcing them to take various defensive stances. Then there was a clanking noise as the cannons on the side of the ship opened, and Cid's voice rang out over the intercom again. "We gotta keep our distance, but we can't let her get too far away!" he told them. "You all have to tell me when to move, but tell me quick, eh? This rig ain't so nimble, you hear?"

"Right! I'll tell you when to move!" Rikku shouted back, narrowly dodging a swipe of Evrae's sword-like claws.

Then the battle began in earnest as the great wyrm lashed out with both talon and fang. Everyone managed to evade the attacks with relative ease, but only Wakka and Lulu were actually able to counterstrike without the risk of falling overboard. Suddenly, the dragon latched onto the deck, and began tearing great rents in the ship with its massive claws. As the squeal of tortured metal rang out above the howling of the wind, Cid's voice came back on the intercom as he shouted, "Stop tearing holes in my ship, you bastard!"

Whatever else the Al Bhed leader might have yelled was drowned out by Evrae's scream of pain as Kimahri plunged the heavy spike of his lance through its hand. Then the Ronso jerked the spear backward through the flesh between it's middle two talons, and another shriek of agony, along with a fountain of bright silvery-blue blood rewarded him. Then the dragon-fiend lunged forward and snapped viciously at him, its sapphire blue eyes glowing with obvious hatred, but it backed away again as Lulu cast a Fira spell at its face, and Auron and Charlie hacked away at its arms in an attempt to get it to let go of the ship. Evrae released its grip on the deck, and then Rikku shouted, "Vydran, suja yfyo!" (Father, move away!)

"Right, hang on!" he replied.

Just before the ship could move away, however, the dragon took in a deep breath, and then blew a huge green cloud of poisonous vapor at the party. Her lungs burning and eyes watering, Charlie staggered backwards, then fell over when the ship lurched and veered away from Evrae. "What the hell was that stuff?" she thought, struggling to catch her breath through the waves of fire and nausea that pulsed through her body. "Why can't I breathe?"

Suddenly, someone tilted her face upward, forced her mouth open, and poured something unbelievably bitter down her throat. The young woman's eyes flew open in surprise as she swallowed whatever it was, but then she felt herself go limp with relief as the burning subsided. "Charlie, are you okay?" Rikku asked, helping the swordswoman get to her feet.

"Yeah, I'll be okay, but where did Big, Pink, and Scaly run off to?"

As if in response to her question, Evrae let out another shrieking roar from the distance, and launched a volley of gold-white energy spheres at the airship. The vessel shuddered violently under the assault, but thankfully managed to stay airborne, even as the great wyrm tried to land again. This time, however, Rikku drove it back with several well-timed grenades, just as the intercom crackled to life again. "Hang on everyone!" Cid cried. "I'm hittin' her with all we've got!"

Evrae started to swoop forward again, only to meet a salvo of high-powered missiles head-on, and its screams of pain quickly faded under the sound of the massive explosion that followed the attack. Then all was silent, save for the howling of the wind as it whipped by at impossible speeds, and the smoke cleared, leaving nothing but empty sky in front of them. "So…did we get it?" Wakka asked, looking around warily.

A horrible scream of insane rage split the air again, as the dragon climbed over the back of the ship. Its body covered in terrible burns and bleeding lacerations, and its wings nothing but tatters of singed flesh; Evrae was definitely alive, and very angry. The fiend screeched again, its eyes gleaming with a mad light akin to Seymour's, and it dropped onto the deck, tail lashing like a cat's. "Oh…damn…" Charlie trailed off, neatly summing up everyone's thoughts of the situation.

Evrae charged again, seemingly determined to shred the puny creatures that dared attack it, and everyone had to fall back, or risk a painful and messy death courtesy of its severely mutilated claws and flashing teeth. When that did not work, the dragon tried using its poisonous breath again, but when Wakka retaliated with an assault that covered his blitzball in flame, everyone, including Evrae, discovered that the toxic vapors were also flammable. The green haze erupted in a massive, fiery explosion, which left everyone battered and singed, and the dragon without its head. Now dead, the fiend's corpse slowly slid sideways off the deck and burst into pyreflies as everyone got to their feet and gave Wakka some odd looks. "What?" he demanded, staring back at them. "How was I supposed to know its head would explode?"

Suddenly, a huge plume of black smoke started pouring from the back of the airship, and it shuddered violently as it rocketed skyward, then tilted and plunged downward through the clouds. Charlie clung to the deck, and squeezed her eyes shut when they broke through the fog and she saw the ground rushing up to meet them at impossible speeds. "Oh God! Oh God! Oh great God I'm gonna be sick!" she thought, swallowing against the lump in her throat as her stomach turned backflips and somersaults.

Finally, the airship pulled out of its screaming nosedive, Evrae's pyreflies swirling all around them as they pulled close to the bridge hanging above the temple-palace of Bevelle, and the warrior monks and machina creatures guarding the event opened fire on them. Then the ship pulled to a stop, and a pair of huge, harpoon-like anchors shot out of the bottom and buried themselves in the pavement. "We're supposed to slide down those?" Charlie asked, her face paling even more.

"Yep," Wakka replied.

"Wonderful…" "God, I hate heights! Why in all that is holy do we have to deal with heights?"

::Let me help you then,:: the little boy in purple said, seizing control of her body.

"Hey, what are you doing?" she mentally shrieked as her body skated down the wire seemingly of its own volition. "I didn't say you can possess me!"

::Oh calm down, I'm not possessing you! I'm just helping you get down without splattering yourself on the pavement,:: he blithely replied as she flipped to the side and land on the other line. Then, when they finally reached the bottom, the boy released his hold on her, and said, ::See? That wasn't so bad, was it?::

"My ass, it wasn't! I wish you were around so I can throw up on you!"

::Oh, don't worry…we'll meet again soon!::

With that, the voice vanished from her mind, just as Lulu appeared in front of her in a puff of dark blue smoke. "Sweet merciful Christ on a cracker!" Charlie shrieked, nearly falling over. "How in blue hell did you do that?"

"It's an old trick mages learn in case of an emergency," Lulu replied, keeping her eyes on the soldiers in front of them. "Can we discuss it later?"

"Right." Charlie turned her attention to Yuna, who stood with Seymour on the other side of a seemingly endless swarm of guards and machina. "Yuna! We're here to crash the party!"

"You'll have to get through us, first!" a soldier snarled, pointing his rifle at her.

Kimahri roared, snatched the gun out of the guard's hand, then picked him up by his throat, and growled, "Kimahri not have problem with that!"

Then the Ronso chucked the mouthy warrior monk over the ledge, whipped out his spear, and started tearing a bloody path through the other monks, as the unfortunate one's scream faded away. The others followed Kimahri, striking down the ones he missed with various attacks. They managed to make it to the foot of the stairs, when a pair of machina, one leggy and the other with a pair of cannons, blocked their way. The leggy one unleashed a savage kick on Kimahri, while the cannon blasted the rest with a mortar shell. "Hey, I thought that machina were forbidden by Yevon!" Charlie shouted, giving Wakka a sidelong glance.

"I did too!" the blitzer replied, whacking the leggy machina with his blitzball.

Auron then used that moment of distraction to get inside the stone robot's reach and hack off its leg, leaving it thrashing helplessly on the ground while its partner tried to bomb everyone again. "Watera!" Lulu shouted, throwing her hand skyward as her eyes began to glow blue.

In response to the mage's call, a geyser of water burst from the pavement, smashing the floating machina to bits and clearing a path up the stairs. The six guardians managed to make it up to the next flight, only to run into Kinoc, and more warrior monks than they could possibly deal with. "This has gone far enough!" the fat maester said, pointing his rifle in Charlie's face as the other soldiers raised their own weapons.

Suddenly, Yuna pulled her summoner's staff from behind her back and stepped out in front of Seymour. "You would play at marriage just for a chance to send me?" he asked, amusement clear in his frigid gaze. "Your resolve is admirable…all the more fitting to be my lovely wife."

Slowly, pyreflies began to swirl out of the twisted maester's body as Yuna began the sending, but then Mika shouted, "Stop! Do you not value your friends' lives?" She paused, and the flimsy-looking old man continued to speak. "Your actions determine their fate. Protect them…or throw them away. The choice is yours."

Yuna froze, and then Charlie shouted, "Yuna, NO! Don't listen to that crazy old fart! He's ly…"

The young woman promptly shut her mouth when Kinoc jammed the rifle under her jaw. "I'd be quiet if I were you," he said, glaring at her.

Yuna stared at her guardians in horror for a brief instant, and then dropped her staff and let it clatter down the stairs. "You are wise," Seymour whispered, drawing close to her.

Then he placed his hands on her shoulders, drew her close, and kissed her. Charlie heard various noises of disgust coming from her friends, but was too preoccupied with her own intense rage at the awful sight to pay it any attention. Suddenly, it occurred to her that it was Seymour kissing Yuna, and that, combined with all the flipping and flying she did earlier, proved too much for her poor stomach to handle. Her breath started coming in ragged bursts as her stomach turned flip-flops, and Kinoc actually backed away from her. "Charlie, are you all right?" Auron whispered, glancing at her.

Instead of answering, the green-faced girl turned to her left and threw up all over the warrior monk who happened to be standing there. Everyone in the area stopped cold and gaped at her in complete silence as she wiped at her mouth and sheepishly whispered, "Oops…"

The unfortunate soldier she barfed on stared in astonishment, quickly followed by rage. "Son of a BITCH!" he yelled, chucking his fouled rifle over the railing in his anger. "I don't believe this!"

"Uh…you're excused, soldier," Kinoc said, before turning and pointing the gun at Charlie again. "Girl, if you throw up on me, I swear I'll…"

"I think I'm done for the day," she softly replied, her face red with embarrassment, while in her mind, adding, "You fat, stupid, arrogant, mother…"

Just then, Seymour broke off his kiss with Yuna, and gave Charlie an unreadable look, before saying, "Kill them."

The remaining soldiers cocked their rifles, and Kinoc said, "I am sorry, but it is for Yevon."

"Aren't those weapons forbidden by Yevon?" Auron asked, giving his former friend a baleful stare.

The pudgy maester turned and pointed his rifle in the swordsman's face. "There are some exceptions," he replied, a wicked gleam in his eye.

Auron said nothing else, and just closed his eye, waiting for the bullet to pierce his brain. Charlie stared at the two men, all the while silently praying, "Please God…not him. Point that gun at me again, if it'll make you feel better, but don't shoot Auron!"

"No!" Yuna screamed, causing everyone to stare at her as she stood on the ledge. "Throw down your weapons! Let them go, or else…"

The angry summoner stepped back a couple of paces, and Seymour quickly motioned for the warrior monks to put down their rifles. Charlie ran up the stairs, edging around Seymour, and said, "Yuna, are you crazy?"

"Leave now, please!" she begged, taking another step back.

"We came to get you, and we're not leaving without you!"

"Don't worry, just go!"

"This is foolish," Seymour said, amazingly the voice of sanity in the conversation. "If you fall, you'll die."

Yuna gave her husband a look of sheer hatred as she fiercely wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then turned back to Charlie and said, "Don't worry, I can fly. Believe."

"What the hell? That's usually something someone says when they're stoned off their asses!" Then the summoner-bride smiled, closed her eyes, and plummeted backward off the ledge. "Yuna, NO!"

Everyone hurried to the ledge to look on in horror as Yuna fell, seemingly to her death on the streets far below. Suddenly, a series of lights, brilliant as a mirror in the sun, flashed like a fireworks display, and a magenta and violet blur streaked past the onlookers with the speed and grace of a stooping falcon. "Valefor…" Charlie gasped, realizing what she just witnessed. "If I ever get the chance, I'll have to thank her…"

"Cover your eyes!" Rikku shouted, tossing a small object at Seymour.

The maester stupidly looked down to see what it was, and when it finally exploded, cringed as a blinding flash lit up the area. Unfortunately, Charlie did not completely avoid the light either, and vigorously rubbed at her eyes in an effort to get them working properly again, as Wakka asked Rikku about the grenade. "Hey, what the hell are you doing?" Charlie shouted, struggling to get free when Kimahri picked her up and carried her under one arm like a weird, living football.

"Yuna said leave!" the Ronso replied, knocking another soldier over the ledge. "We leave."

"I'm fine with that, but you don't have to carry me like this, you know!"

"Can Charlie see?"

"Not at the moment, no."

"Then Kimahri carry."

…

Finally, Charlene's vision cleared again, but by that time, the party had already arrived at the entrance of another large building. "Where'd Yunie go?" Rikku asked, cautiously looking around for more guards.

"Bevelle Palace is temple," Kimahri replied as he set Charlie down, "Yuna goes to one place only."

"She's going to get the next aeon, isn't she?" the swordswoman asked.

Instead of waiting for an answer, however, she dashed inside the temple and skidded to a stop near a set of stairs that spiraled a long way downward. "Holy moly!"

"It's too quiet," Lulu commented. "It may be a trap."

"Maybe," Charlie replied, "But Yuna's down there, somewhere, and we have to find her!"

Meanwhile, Rikku studied an odd-looking device near the stairs, and let out a startled yelp when a machina platform rumbled to life. "What's a machina doing in the temple?" Wakka demanded, staring at the machine in horror.

"I suppose it comes in handy," the Al Bhed replied, peering down the lengthy staircase.

"That's not what I mean! The teachings! What about the teachings?"

"Hey, don't look at me!"

Despite Wakka's complaints, they used the machina platform to reach the bottom of the staircase, where they encountered even more "forbidden" machina. "Man…" the blitzer grumbled, glaring at the machines as if they might attack at any moment.

"So this is Yevon's true face," Auron said, impassively looking around. "They betray their own teachings."

"They treated us like dirt," the vertical-haired guardian muttered, storming through the door to the next room.

Following his lead, the group made their way down the empty corridor, and stopped again in front of the door. "The entrance to the Trials," Lulu said, her garnet eyes thoughtful.

"I wonder if Yunie's really in there," Rikku thought aloud.

"Let's go see!" Wakka said, with some of his normal exuberance.

The Cloister of Trials in Bevelle was a large, mazelike structure that looked like something out of a science-fiction movie, and required the use of another machina platform, a pillar, and several indigo blue spheres in order to solve it. When Charlie picked up one of the spheres, however, time froze in its tracks, and an all-too familiar voice rang out in her mind. ::Hello Charlie. Didn't I say we'd meet again soon?::

The voice belonged to the kid in purple, the one who dragged her to Spira. "Son of a bitch!" she cursed, not really knowing what else to do. "I swear to God you'd better not give me some line about 'love' or whatnot, because I've heard enough of it from your little playmates!"

::Oh, don't worry about that,:: he calmly replied. ::I already know how you feel about the Guardian, so I won't try to convince you to do anything.::

The way the boy said 'guardian', Charlie knew that it had more emphasis than normal, and it aroused her curiosity. "You mean Auron? Okay then, if you aren't here to harass me about him, then what the hell do you want? Can't you see I'm trying to save Yuna at the moment?"

::Yes, I can see that, and you're doing a good job of it so far. Just remember that we all believe in you Charlie…::

With that, time restarted and she was finally alone in her mind once again. "Damn brain-talking midget," she muttered under her breath.

"What?" Rikku asked, poking her in the ribs to get her attention.

"Oh, never mind. I'm just thinking aloud is all." "Nope, I still can't tell anyone about the people that talk in my head. I have no desire to visit the Spiran equivalent of the nuthouse, so I'll just need to keep that to myself."

…

There were no clocks in the Cloister, and Charlie did not have a watch, so she had no clue how long it took them to solve the irritating puzzle of the Trial. All she knew was that they finally made it to the Chamber of the Fayth, but Yuna was nowhere in sight. "Where is she?" she groaned in frustration.

"Inside, maybe?" Wakka suggested, pointing at the door to the chamber.

"Well why are we standing around out here like a bunch of idiots, then?" Charlie walked up to the door, then banged and kicked at it, much to everyone else's dismay. "Shut up, Wakka!" she snapped, when the blitzer acted as if he wanted to say something. "I don't care about the taboos or whatever, so just be quiet!"

Then she grabbed the bottom of the door and tugged on it as hard as she could in an effort to pry it open, but it was to no avail. Finally, Kimahri strode over and helped the young woman pull it upward, and she quickly dashed inside to find her friend. Charlie found Yuna on her knees, silently praying before a glass-covered hole in the floor. Inside the hole lay an odd statue that looked like a cross of man and beast, and hovering above it was the boy in purple! "No…" she gasped, staring at the kid as he watched Yuna. "You…w-what the hell are you?"

"A fayth," Auron explained, entering the room. "They join with the summoner, and together receive the aeon. They are human souls, imprisoned in stone by ancient Yevon rites." He stood next to her, and came to a stop. "The dead should be allowed to rest."

Charlie stared at him for one long moment, surprised by the regret coloring his voice, but then the ghostly little boy floated into Yuna's body, joining with her in a bright flash of light. Then, for the briefest instant, the image of a huge dragon superimposed itself over the summoner's body, before it vanished and allowed her to fall to the floor in a crumpled heap. "The dragon…is it…Bahamut? That annoying, pain-in-my-ass little kid is Bahamut? So the other people I talked to, the people who brought me here are all fayth? That's just perfect! Wonderful!"

Concerned for Yuna, the young woman rushed to where she lay, and pulled her to her feet. "Auron, could you come here and help me, please?" she asked, giving the older guardian a questioning look. "I can't carry her by myself, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd help me."

Without a word, Auron strode over and gathered Yuna into his arms, giving Charlene a peculiar look before turning and walking out of the Chamber. As the young woman watched him leave, she felt a delicious chill run down her spine. "God, I could wish it were me he was carrying like that!" she thought, before shaking her head to clear out the lovely mental image. Then she followed him out, but paused when Rikku shouted, "Don't come out!"

However, it was too late, and the door closed behind them, leaving them in the room with Maester Kinoc and a squad of temple guards. "You are to stand trial," the portly maester announced, clearly relishing their predicament.

"I expect it will be a fair trial," Auron smirked, giving his former friend "The Look."

"Of course it will," Kinoc snidely replied.

"Fair trial?" Charlie thought as the guards moved in on her. "Yeah right! These corrupt bastards wouldn't know a fair trial if it walked up and slapped them in the face! Fifty bucks says that their idea of a fair trial is making up a bunch of lies about us and not giving us the chance to defend ourselves! Damn it! Why couldn't Bahamut do Sin's little trick and transport us all somewhere else?"