An AU Kuja fic, shonen-ai, language
*****
*****
With a feeling of almost divine omniscience, Kuja extended his consciousness one shard at a time. Relaying from Tower to Tower with the speed of a thought, he easily overrode the Selwe defense mechanisms to dominate the crystalline conduits. He laughed at the sensation of being everywhere at once, able to see almost the entire planet from over a thousand different points of view. Only where the oceans stretched wide and free did his reach fail. There were no Towers in the vast blue. At best he could follow the links around the edges and across where the continents lay close together.
Selwe thoughts cluttered the channels between the stones, distracting him with their frantic chattering. With a deft twist of will, he closed the crystals off to the irritating interference, shutting all access points save the one reaching down from orbit.
Kuja, what have you done?
The sudden silence was as frightening to her as it was delightful to him. He ignored the alien queen’s distress as he settled the Net to his liking. “I’ve decided I’m quite fond of your little toy. I think I shall claim it for my own.”
You mustn’t!
Wondering how much control he had over the frequencies in the stones, he urged them to stop blocking the energies radiated from the distant stars, and start collecting them instead. The result was both immediate and impressive.
Kuja grinned at the ripple of power that rushed through the system, ready and waiting at his fingertips. It felt good, a golden rush of life energy. The crystals did their work in perfect unison, a planet-sized amplifier at his beck and call. He could feel the weaker Towers growing over burdened, their shards threatening to burst under the added strain, but they would last more than long enough to suit his purpose.
The genome hummed softly in tune with the shard’s wild vibrations. It took real effort to pull himself away from the distracting ebb and flow of power. The Queen and her problems were annoying, forcing him to concentrate on something other than the amazing feelings that the crystal network was feeding him.
// God what am I doing? //
He shook himself free of the mesmerizing grip of the stones, recalling his purpose // Stupid, pay attention or she really will kill us all… //
The tiny burst of terror did the trick, settling him firmly back into his body and the world at large. Kuja flexed the Net again, just to prove he could, and turned to the address the Queen. “You have no alternative, you must surrender.”
To be defeated is to face oblivion! She hissed back, thoughts strident with worry.
She was somehow still able to maneuver her consciousness around his, dizzyingly flexible as she twisted and dodged to grab pieces of the Net from him. He in turn snatched them back, forcing her to abandon signals half sent. After a frantic moment of shifting energies they reached another stalemate. Kuja could feel her exhaustion, knowing the power grab had cost her more than it had him. The alien was nothing if not relentless.
This world must be
ours! There is no other! My children
must survive.
“Their survival is the reason why I want you to surrender.” Kuja sighed. “This world cannot be yours through conquest, but perhaps, through cooperation?”
Never. Warm-bloods are savage.
“Your prejudice does you no credit.” He scolded, giddy from the overflow pouring into him from the shard. The woman was being entirely unreasonable, her personality an odd mix of logical and dogmatic. Grimly he wondered if a truce would even be possible. He hadn’t counted on her black-and-white view on victory. It was infuriatingly childish.
“Compromise is your only option!” Opening his eyes, he stared up at the dark tile of the ceiling, seeing beyond it to the massive ship hanging in orbit. Despite its size, it was still just a lonely speck when compared to the enormous empty places between stars. Kuja knew exactly how easy it once would have been to swat the bit of technology out of the sky. “Please, I do not want to destroy you.”
The others of your kind will not agree to this. They fear us as much as we fear them. She whispered after a long silence.
“They’ll learn.” He smirked. “Humans are remarkably adaptable when they set their minds to it.”
Incomprehensible.
“At times.” Kuja agreed, skimming the network at his command once again, resisting the rushing glow of the shards in order to gain a practical understand what the battered planet had to offer.
The devastation on the southern-most continent was absolute. He silently gazed in awe at the wreckage of the large human cities, already half claimed by the growing deserts. Intricate nests were rising from the rubble like little soap bubbles of green, blue and gold. The distant alien structures looked strangely beautiful among the shifting sands. “Your ship. Is it able to descend and land, or are shuttles required?”
It can be landed. The queen hesitantly acknowledged. But a return to space would be impossible.
“The area to the south-east is not capable of sustaining humans any longer. I will give it to you for your new home.”
It is too small. She hissed. My children need more room.
“Your children will have to learn some moderation.” He snapped back. “Otherwise even without sharing with us, you will exhaust this world in a matter of centuries, just as your race consumed the last one.”
We must expand. The queen countered. Growth is our imperative.
“To what purpose?” Kuja felt the other’s mind turn the question over doubtfully, trying to find a response. “To what end do you consume all that is put before you?”
It… It is what we have always done. Her thoughts came slowly across the link, her tone grudging. It is our imperative.
“High time for a change then, I think.” He replied with candor.
Kuja wasn’t surprised when she lunged again, making a second desperate attempt to regain control of the Net. Moving to meet her challenge he anticipated her consciousness in another dizzying dance from Tower to Tower, each trying to cut the other out of the network.
*****
“What in hell is going on?” Laro wondered aloud.
He would have worried that nobody was watching the enemy, except that the attacking army had fallen into complete disarray. Half the armored insects were milling about in a panicked mob, the rest stood as if frozen in place. As odd as the sight was, the drama over head was what had riveted his troops’ eyes skyward.
The distant Tower was flaring, the whole Net unnaturally
brilliant. Normally it was near impossible to see at
The winds gusted erratically, picking up dust and loose debris and throwing them into the air. The hot squalls and dust-devils held a strange scent of ozone as they swept by. It made the hair on the back of his neck tingle with the changing atmosphere.
// Some kind of attack…? What are they planning? //
There was something distinctly menacing about the wildly fluctuating energies. Given the complete chaos of the Selwe army, he couldn’t imagine that the Tower’s behavior was intentional. The aliens would hardly use a weapon that harmed their own troops. Or at least he hoped not.
The echo of Masa’s voice came back to him faintly, wondering aloud at the Queen’s expendable army. He shuddered at the thought and barked out orders to pick up the pace of their retreat. While the aliens were distracted his men might as well take advantage and gain some ground. Ibat’s forces were already climbing back up onto the mesa, safely home despite the near disaster that had occurred less than twelve hours ago. Glancing over the ridge at the ocean-sized army of black insects, Laro shuddered and counted his blessings that they stood momentarily crippled. Even with the cannon in his possession, fighting a horde that size would be tantamount to suicide.
“Come on… move. There’ll be plenty of time to gawk at the sky once we’re back on high ground.”
Moving as if waking from a dream, the soldiers around him threw themselves into action, grimly retreating at a steady pace back along the broken remains of a road. Sitting in his jeep, Laro didn’t have to worry about watching his footing. He scanned the horizon instead, observing the distant army for any sign of waking up. The insects continued to clump in dazed huddles, seemed just as confused as everyone as to what was happening.
Laro grabbed for his radio and flipped it on. Whatever the Towers were doing was playing hell with the frequencies, the noise across all bands was in penetrable. For a moment he thought he heard Ibat’s voice above the crackle of static, but there was no way to tell if the older general heard him. Unhindered, they were able to cover the flat land quicker than expected, climbing a second set of hills and pausing within sight of home. Still the aliens did nothing, oblivious that their prey was soon to escape.
// Not like it matters. There are so many, they could swamp the mesa with only a fraction of that… How in the hell can we be expected to stand and fight? Even with an army of mages, which I just don’t have, the odds are ludicrous. //
Even Kuja wouldn’t be able to stop the tide of battle, should the Selwe decide to lay siege a second time. Even if the man had the stamina for the fight, which he didn’t, there were simply too many. The very idea of taking on an army that size all at once left Laro a little giddy.
// We’ll have to retreat to the mountains. It’s our only hope. We’ll use the passes and highlands as a way of breaking the enemy into more manageable pieces. If we meet them head on here, we’ll be annihilated. //
Grimly composing the message he would send back to the capital in his head as he rode back to camp, Laro tried hard not to think about what a forced-march would do to his already fragile lover. It was entirely likely that the man wouldn’t survive the trip.
// Stupid. Damned foolish… I should have sent him home as soon as he arrived. This is all my fault. Less than a month out here, and he’s already broken-down past hope for a cure. I should have never let him stay here. //
It was selfish, he realized, to fear for the survival of one, when his entire army was facing a strong possibility of destruction. He cared, he tried to, but in the end his thoughts returned to Kuja.
Laro wondered if the news of the new enemy armies had reached the hospital tent yet, realizing that it must have. He couldn’t begin to guess what his lover was thinking as he lay in his quiet corner listening to the changing tide of battle. Was he even worried about how he would handle an arduous evacuation? Or was he too concerned with plotting out a strategy that would win the army a victory that he had no intention of surviving long enough to see. Swallowing back his bile, Laro studied the sky and prayed grimly for a miracle.
// I know two in one year is a lot to ask, lord. But I, no, /we/ could really use a hand down here. //
*****
Kuja panted with the exertion of tangling with the Queen’s will from several directions at once. So far the Net was still predominately under his control, but shutting the aliens out of it proved more of a challenge than he had expected. She was undoubtedly getting help, thoughts moving in strangely parallel ways at times during her attacks, and he, while relatively stronger, found he was still able to be out maneuvered.
// Egotistical of me, to think I could waltz in and easily beat her at her own game. Silly Kuja, what are you going to do now? //
He was not as successful at keeping the Queen from broadcasting as he would have liked. In a momentary pause he had a chance to look down at the battle on the surface, and grimaced to see that Selwe army had apparently received one of her terse signals. The black sea of drones was slowly starting to regroup and move. The horde no longer needed additional guidance from above. Somehow she had alerted her creature on the ground to do as it wished.
There was no way to warn Laro that the
Still, it was exceptionally irritating.
// Bitch. //
// You can’t go behind my back if I cut the channels you’re using out of the Net for good… //
He spitefully dumped energy through two channels that simply couldn’t handle the load, shattering a series of Towers planted far down the coast. He mourned the loss of the shards, but the sacrifice was more than worth it. No longer able to use them as relays, the Queen shrieked her rage at him and quickly retreated to a node half a world away before she could be trapped. He grinned and raced after her, determined that this time the Net would be his in entirety.
“Come lady, surely you can see that this fight is pointless.” At a stalemate once again, He watched her closely, trying to guess her next move. Her silence was a little unnerving. Doubtless, she was up to something.
Compromise is
unacceptable. You are but one
individual, you can be destroyed.
Her pronouncement came after a silence that lasted minutes. Kuja could only roll his eyes, not missing the dark humor of the situation. It was strange to hear his previous opinions thrown so blatantly back into his face.
The Queen was making her move, but not from within the Net. Kuja sensed her ship altering its orbit, Selwe technology too alien for him to be able to tell if the movements were meant to be threatening. Whatever her plan she was willing to expend precious fuel to power the engines, and other dormant systems as well, he vainly wished he could get a clearer idea of what she was up to.
“This is a mistake.” He called out, feeling her distraction with things aboard her ship but unwilling to risk attacking her consciousness. Kuja wanted her alive, feeling that if he killed her by accident, the resulting chaos would be catastrophic.
You will be destroyed!
“Listen to me!” He could feel her slipping away, “There are other answers! We don’t have to do this!”
I have nothing more to
say to you, mammal.
“… I’ll prove it to you, that there is another answer. Lady, I have seen it with my own eyes. There is another way.”
It is not our way.
“Then I am sorry for you.”
Eyes wide, he felt her strike. The Queen destroying her Net even as he had done, detonating the smaller shards with a massive surge of power even as he scrambled to redirect her attack to protect the remaining crystals. There was a certain bitter irony, he realized as he desperately fought to isolate and buffer from the strike, that he was struggling to maintain the very same technology that was intended to enslave the world.
// Cleverer than I gave her credit for //
He smirked even as he grimly counted his losses. The Net still stood, but three Towers in five were nothing but burned out husks.
// She found my weakness after all…//
The crystal’s song, still pulsing beneath his fingertips, was slowly dwindling. Weakened as it was, he still felt its reaction when the second strike began.
*****
Stars were falling, or maybe comets. Clay tried to follow the bright flares with his eyes but kept needing to look away, the brightness too much. They left after images on his retinas when he turned away and glanced around the narrow gully. There was no sign of life, animal or alien in his narrow hiding place.
He wondered where the Selwe were, how they were responding to the sudden shifts in their precious Towers. There was no doubt that Kuja had succeeded in doing /something/. The monoliths had never acted so strangely before. He wondered if it was a good sign or a bad one. The radio’s near constant hiss of static had died down abruptly, making him nervously aware that he could no longer hear the distant din of battle, couldn’t hear anything in fact.
“Come on, Kuja… what the hell are you doing.”
Fumbling, he grabbed for the now silent radio and cautiously pressed the transmit button. “… This is general Gerrick, asking for verbal confirmation from Generals Nazer and Ibat.”
Staring upwards, he watched the trails of light as they continued to silently fall. They had separated a little now, becoming roughly fifty twinkling streamers across the sky.
// Maybe the Selwe are sending us new Towers to replace the one’s we’ve demolished… //
“Gerrick
lad, is that you?” His receiver
crackled madly, the voice recognizable as the older general’s. “God damn it. Radios are working again. Quick
count-off people, use band-3. Gerrick, the bugs are on the move again. Prepare for
evacuation, got it?”
He rolled his eyes knowing he was nowhere near the installation to give the necessary orders. The transmission band was suddenly full of high-ranking officers from each unit reporting in. Hopefully one of his subordinates was listening in as well and could get the job done. Clay waited until he wouldn’t talk over someone else and gave his response, “Understood, general.”
“This is Nazer. I can see the
The man’s tone sounded strangely flat, even with the distortion of the radio. Clay wondered if the war hero would finally just snap and get it over with. Considering that as soon as he got back to camp, he’d discover his little lover had taken it into his head to wreak havoc in an enemy Tower all on his own, the Kai’s impending melt-down probably could be written into the schedule in ink.
“What are those lights? More Towers?” He dared to ask.
“… Maybe?” Ibat didn’t sound particularly confident. “Maybe something worse.
We won’t know until they land.”
“Get moving.” Nazer’s feedback was to-the-point. “Best not to stand around and wait to find out.”
Whatever the lights were, they were definitely falling. Spreading out as they went, they grew larger as they went, their movement gradually gaining in sound with each passing moment. He watched several of the trails disappear over the mountain range, heading for somewhere inexplicable. Listening to the faint shriek from one of the other lights, he felt strangely confident that it was heading his way. Suddenly he recognized the paths each of the lights was taking.
// … They’re not aiming at the army at all… they’re… aiming for the Towers? //
Glancing over his shoulder at where the closest monolith continued to flare, he swallowed and put the truck in gear, backing it further down the gully.
The faint shriek became a roar. He watched the sharp shadows his truck was suddenly casting, marveling at the white light, before doing the only thing he could think of. Clay dove out of the vehicle and scrambled underneath it.
// This is going to be loud… //
*****
Kuja snarled in frustration at being trapped inside the Tower. He knew what was going on, but not being able to /see/ it was slowing him down by critical degrees. Somewhere in the distance, a missile collided with one of the larger shards, destroying its Tower and knocking two smaller ones out of the network. The loss in power was immediate.
// I can’t function without the crystals, damn it! //
He already has as much power as he could hold within him, but was reluctant to let go of the crystal all together. Once he tapped into his reserves, there would be no going back.
// Now. It has to be now, before I’m crippled all together. //
The smooth polished ceiling and roof detonated up and outwards with a word, opening his room to the sky above. For a moment he was blinded by the sunlight, and then realized that it wasn’t the sun alone. A missile was arching towards him, a comet sized warhead blazing a trail of white fire as it closed for the kill. He blinked, reminded of the old films of Terra he had watched as a child, terms long forgotten floating to the surface.
// Orbital bombardment… fission bombs? //
He didn’t want to wait until one exploded near by to find out.
// I try to help her… keep her from destroying herself… and she repays me with trying to atomize me? Now that is gratitude for you. //
The anger was good, necessary even. Kuja dug
deeper. It was ironic that for once his
quick-to-rise temper wasn’t there for him. Before, with
// How the hell did Zidane do it so easily?! He could Trance at the drop of a hat, I swear… was he just that much more high-strung than me? That much stronger? Or is there something, even now, that I’m missing? //
The thought was galling. He had researched the power of Trance for years as he had waited for Gaia to fall, knew more about it than anyone. The beauty of it wasn’t that the power came from rising above adversity, or any defensive reflex. It was about rage, the pure primal need for destruction that even the most well balanced person might feel when thwarted in their goals. Unchecked, it would grow wildly, running out of control and spending itself with little to show for it. But focused in the right way, and with the right motivation… Zidane had proven it. A successful Trance was unbeatable.
// She doesn’t care at all. Her own life is meaningless to her without victory. She will kill everyone and promptly turn the whole world into a manufacturing plant for a new spaceship to go find another world… and start everything all over again… Unless I end the cycle… //
Laro dead.
Anne dead.
All of his other stubborn friends dead. He had never asked for them to care about him, had never planned to reciprocate, but they were dear to him just the same. The thought of the capital city laid to waste, familiar streets pocked with craters was too horrible.
Hundreds of thousands of nameless soldiers strewn across the fields, crushed under the Selwe army as it advanced towards the sea.
For what? Some nebulous paranoid fear the insects had about sharing a world they had no right to in the first place. Kuja clenched his fists. It was sick. It was wasteful.
It was exactly as bad as he had done.
Fury, at the aliens, at himself, it warmed him to the marrow and sparkled behind his eyes. The futility of it all, to have come so far, and willfully risked caring about so many people, and still, to be told that none of it mattered. The idea of losing to her hurt ferociously.
// I won’t allow it. //
Changeover caught him just as the markings on the approaching missile were clear enough to read. He staggered back with a gasp as he was swept up in the torrent, blurrily aware of the bomb crumpling and exploding impotently in midair on contact with his expanding energies. Current raced along his skin with an itchy burn, transforming flesh and incinerating cloth. It left him with an impression of lightness and strange serenity, just as it had once before. His emotions faded into distant melancholy things, all sense of physical pain or exhaustion forgotten.
Kuja blinked as the initial buzz faded, leaving him hovering above the shattered top floor of his Tower in a protective cocoon of destructive magic. Looking upwards, his enhanced eyes easily saw through vapor, dust, and upper atmosphere to find a single starship orbiting the world.
// This ends now. //
Even as he brought his hands together for the spell, feathers bending in the hot wind, he could feel the precious seconds slipping away.
*****
The Tower on the other side of the valley erupted in a noisy burst. Ibat squinted and shielded his eyes while trying to get a better look. Half way up the escarpment leading to camp, he wished he was higher still annoyed that his view of the strange multi-tonal light show was blocked by the hills. His jeep pulled him higher, clearing the top of the mesa and he grabbed for his binoculars, amazed at the sight of the Tower still standing. He had hit the monoliths with far less explosive in the past and had them shatter to pieces. Somehow the bomb dropped from orbit must have missed its target.
// An explosion that big can’t have missed… //
The lights didn’t fade completely, a brilliant sparkle hanging in midair above the familiar dark profile. He fiddled with the focus and then rubbed his eyes, uncertain what he was seeing. A brilliant corona of yellow and red burned steadily amidst the smoke, at its center a shadow that was unmistakably man-shaped.
// … Kuja…? It has to be… who else would be able to do something like that… //
The hovering nimbus swirled and churned like a tiny sun, perfectly at ease with its defiance of gravity. He blinked and realized it was growing brighter, a new light blooming to life and erupting outward in a series of wild streams, almost an exact parody of the missile trails falling earthwards. They wailed, audible even thirty miles away, a high pitched cry of defiance as they zigged and zagged, climbing upwards and spreading out to deliberately chase down the slower moving enemy attack. The sky was lit up abruptly with a series of ground shaking explosions, the odd mix of yellow, red and strangely, ultraviolet.
Someone pressed a radio into his hands, and not looking away from the amazing display of magic, he lifted it to better hear the shouting. “One at a time people. Ranking officer report?”
“This is Nazer, what the hell is going on? It looks like someone’s
set off fireworks or something…”
“… You’re not going to believe this, boy, but I think its young master Kuja… The disturbance seems centralized on that Tower we were aiming to take, but I can’t see anything clearly. Someone would have to go over there and get a closer look to be certain.”
“Kuja?!”
“Wait, something else is happening…” Everet, brought his binoculars back up, wincing as the light surrounding the distant body flared brighter a moment and then threw itself upwards. “… where the hell is he going?”
The trail of fire shot vertically up through the clouds and was gone from sight. His second in command swore as it disappeared with a twinkle. “… he’s taking the fight to /her/.”
“That’s impossible,” he wondered aloud.
“… Where’s Gerrick?”
Everet blinked at the angry question, realizing that his student had deftly put his finger on the critical point. If anyone would know what their little mage was up to, it was certainly his sour partner-in-crime. The man had been instructed to protect their magical wonder. One way or another, he had directly disobeyed. Everet reached forwards and tapped on his driver to get the man’s attention. “Drive straight to the hospital. I want to check on Mister Kuja.”
His aide spared him a doubtful look. “Yes sir, the hospital.”
“And find me General Gerrick.” He added, slouching back further in his seat to study the distant clouds. The Net was still flickering, but now there were pale purple flashes in the heavy hanging rain clouds in contrast to the steady golden ropes of light. He had a hunch that there would be no sign of the strange courtesan when he arrived at the medical tent. All his instincts told him that the boy was long gone, although to where, he wasn’t sure he believed.
*****
“You. You are in charge of the men, get them back to camp and packing whatever can be for a quick retreat.” Laro pointed peremptorily at one of his more experienced officers.
Catching another man’s eye, he gestured that he was to go as well. “You too.” The men looked as though they wanted to disagree, but didn’t dare. He hopped forward into the front seat as it was vacated.
“Drive me to the Tower. Now.”
“Sir?” His aide glanced at him, obviously scared, but obediently putting the vehicle back in gear.
“General, you don’t have any weapons… at least take some gunners…” One of his commanders moved to signal one of the laser-carrying soldiers to step forward.
“No. No time.” He vetoed the offer. “And the weight will slow us down. Let’s go, man!” he scolded his driver.
They veered off from the column in a plume of dust. Running parallel to the advancing line of alien troops, the view was terrifying. To his right the Selwe was marching across the plain, slowly following his fleeing troops. With luck, his detour would be too insignificant for them to notice. Knowing he was being unreasonable, Laro couldn’t help but feel crushed by the sense of urgency. If Masa really was there, he had to join him as quickly as possible. It had to be a mistake, maybe Ibat was seeing things. Maybe it was some /other/ mage, but it wasn’t very likely. He closed his eyes and silently cursed the man. If Masa was in trouble, and he couldn’t get there in time, he would never forgive himself.
“Faster.” He ordered as the small jeep tore across the flatlands.
In the distance behind him, came the familiar droning beat of dozens of Stingers in flight.
*****
With his magic curled lovingly around him, Kuja could hardly feel the cold, despite his altitude. Hanging at the very edge of the atmosphere, he looked back and silently appreciated the beauty of the young planet turning beneath him. Just like Gaia, it was certainly a little battered from its ordeal, but there was plenty of life left to heal the wounds. A few centuries of care and peace, and it would return to being blue green and beautiful. He smiled, asking it to be patient a little longer.
In front of him lay the flattened oval that was the Selwe’s final fortress. The level of technology would normally have impressed him deeply, but mid-Trance he could only muster a faint feeling of approval, and distant curiosity as to how it all worked. He would probably never have time to find out.
“It’s time for you to land, my lady. Your journey is ended.”
There was no sound in space, no mix of gasses to transmit his voice beyond his little pocket of magic. Still, she heard him, realizing his location with a mix of surprise and dread.
What are you?
“I was created to be an angel of death. A being able to exist outside of the rational world in order to bring about oblivion.” Kuja smirked, able to feel something of his old amusement, even with his powers at maximum. “I was flawed however, and cast aside.”
You have come to
destroy us.
“No.” He shook his head. “I have come to force you to land your vessel and choose life over death.”
Even on land, I have
my army. The Queen pointed out
brutally. Victory will still be mine.
“You underestimate me, lady.” Kuja looked down, able to see the massive swarm, even from orbit. The sight was truly incredible, a black blur in the middle of the large eastern continent. “How much is your army worth to you?”
They are tools. She couldn’t conceal her worry. They do my bidding.
“Will you mourn them, when they are gone?”
Why should I?
“I wonder that you undervalue the lives you create.” A flick of his fingers, and Ultima bloomed to life; growing and subdividing like a living thing as it branched from his hand and rained to earth.
The first impacts of the enormous spell began in the back half of the Selwe horde, explosions of molten white fading into crazed oranges and reds as everything targeted was eradicated. Two more blossoms of destruction illuminated the continent, and the Selwe army was only half as strong as it had been. Kuja silently apologized to the planet for inflicting such an injury, and raised his hand again. Targeting the second half was more problematic, he didn’t want to clip Laro’s army by accident.
“What do you say, my lady. Do you understand yet, what I am capable of?”
… It is of no matter… The queen’s voice was faint, stunned. They can be replaced.
“You fail to see the point.” Kuja cast again, grimly hoping that he wasn’t damning an entire race to its death. Ultima screamed downward again, this time obeying his will and scouring along the surface in a painfully precise course, burning along the front edge of the army and creating mighty vortexes to crush its flanks before spending itself in the atmosphere. Observing the effect, he conceded that the destruction was almost absolute, but just on the other side of the low mountains, Laro’s camp seemed happily intact.
He looked down at his hands, playfully spinning a final tendril of energy between his fingers. “All this time, you’ve been taking the cowardly way out… sending your Towers, your drones, your missiles… but never yourself, never your loved ones.”
Kuja looked at the spaceship, wondering if even now, she would bother to understand what he was trying to say. “You never risked anything for your victory. It has always been just a chore for you, something to be taken care of by others, without feeling. The people who live here… they have never had that luxury. They have fought and died, and mourned every single one of their losses. They may be ‘savage’ as you say, but not one among them could watch me do what I have just done, and feel nothing. So now I think… it is your turn.” He held up the tame Ultima for her inspection.
“I could end this war now, and destroy you. But I worry it would be meaningless. You would die, never having learned anything from your mistakes.”
Do it.
“No.” Kuja could feel the first hint of cold, and tried not to be afraid that the Trance was wearing off. “I won’t kill you. I may be giving up a chance to end this war today, but I think I was sent here for a reason, to pass along something that I learned… It probably doesn’t matter in the end, if you listen to me. Whether you choose to continue fighting, or not, is up to you. But from now on, you’ll have to face your enemies on equal footing. No more drones to do your dying for you.”
It was a good thing that the final incarnation of Ultima needed to be far smaller than the others. He clung desperately to his control as he drove the tightly bundled comet of destruction through the main engines of the ship. The alien vessel tottered in orbit and began to fall even as he did.
Exhaustion flooded in as the Trance left him, a bone deep need for something that couldn’t be classified as simply sleep, or sustenance. Plummeting backwards through the clouds, Kuja wearily marveled at the thousands of cheerful red and white feathers he left in his wake. Each floated silently on the air, spreading out in lazy whorls as they fell. Weightless, care free, they shimmered in the fading sunlight like rubies and pearls.
// Beautiful //
Magic was bleeding out of him faster than he could clutch at it. Kuja was hard pressed to care, more annoyed than anything at the buffeting pain of the wind as he descended. Turning himself slowly in the air, he mourned the destroyed looking panorama beneath him. The smoking remains of the battlefield where the majority of the enemy had been burned away to nothing but ash.
His velocity was starting to make him dizzy.
Turning again in the air, a slave to the rushing stream around him, the last lingering filaments of the Net caught his eye.
// … maybe…? //
Not truly expecting anything, he reached, and found a distant crystal still transmitting. The power scalded him as he tapped into it, hurting even as it refilled the gaping emptiness left behind by his Trance. Magic flowed readily to his hands, but the necessary focus to cast a spell was much slower in coming. Weakly he tried a Float, and when it seemed to help, tried another. The pressure on his head eased a little as he lost speed, allowing him to open his eyes and admire the cascade of red and white plumes that followed him down.
// There are worse things… than to just dissolve into feathers… I think… Just, float away on the wind… //
He reached shaking hands up to comb them through his hair, freeing thousands more of the downy coverings to flutter free into the air. Kuja laughed softly in delight at the way they drifted up and away with the wind of his passing. Looking down again, he swallowed his fear. The ground was no longer some distant hypothetical, but a rapidly approaching reality.
// I wonder, if the Queen’s ship will be able to survive re-entry without their engine… I may have killed them all by dooming them to be smashed to bits on their way down. //
He cast Float again, a little more urgently than before. It did little to change the fact that he was about to collide with the Tower he had so recently vacated with bone crushing force.
// Is that so bad? //
It would be a quick, if messy death. There was something definitely tempting about the idea. Vanity would prefer to leave a pretty corpse behind, but it was a distant second to the simple practicality of an abrupt finish.
// What does fighting it get me? A few more weeks of decay? A return to being cold all the time? A return to being trapped in a body that fails me? Why bother… //
Watching the distant specks resolve themselves into recognizable things; he was startled to recognize Gerrick’s jeep. The man himself seemed to be crawling out from under it to stare upwards at him in awe. He looked away, not wanting to know if the soldier recognized him. There was another jeep, thoroughly battered, coming along the alien’s main road to the Tower, driving with reckless speed as it raced to beat him to the monolith. Kuja felt something in his chest tighten painfully, magic flaring from his hands, obedient to the choice he subconsciously made.
// Laro? //
The pain struck, turning everything to red-tinged-white, and foolishly he wondered if he had made the right choice after all.
*****
He had known they were playing a dangerous game, trying to dodge around the front of the enemy before the aliens could block his access to the Tower. He hadn’t realized just how dangerous it was until the entire valley shuddered with the shock of the first of the terrible attacks from space. Laro was almost blinded by the first strike, staring at the blue-purple tendril of destruction as it collided with the back half of the Selwe army. The shockwave of superheated wind that blew out from its arrival toppled several hundred rows of drones in all directions and incinerated the Stingers that had been stalking the jeep. Laro felt the skin on his face scorch as he tried to duck away and down, behind the safety of the vehicle’s door. His driver cursed and tried to do the same, steering blind as they tried to get away from the killing heat. A second nightmarish rumble of explosion fell behind them, its shockwave less powerful but no less frightening. The third set the already turbulent air to roaring, picking up the jeep and tossing it forwards like a toy.
// … shit! //
Somehow Laro tumbled clear of the jeep, hitting the dusty ground hard, but not fatally. He shook his head, trying to get his bearings and tried to stand. His right leg wouldn’t even consider it, informing him of its displeasure with a near crippling pain.
//… broke something? //
It seemed a pretty safe bet that there was something wrong with his calf. He cursed and settled for crawling towards his tipped vehicle. Passing the collapsed form of his driver, he paused to take the man’s pulse, and cursed again, the young officer seemed to have died quickly at least. It was as much as anyone could hope for in recent years. Laro closed the man’s eyes and apologized for getting him involved in his hair-brained rescue attempt. Luck was with him at least a little. He found his spear on the ground near the jeep and used it to pull himself upright. Surveying the area, he was glad they had already driven past the bulk of the army. The weird white light continued to pick the Selwe force off from above the clouds, but now at least it was working further away from him.
// Still. Why are they attacking their own? //
The radio was broken, eliminating his ability to ask Ibat if the old man could see more than he did. It took three tries to rock the poor jeep back onto its tires again. Gettiing leverage with only one leg working properly wasn’t easy. Laro crawled into the driver’s seat and grimly wiped the blood from the broken windshield. The air was thick with dust and smoke, strong winds fought against the choking atmosphere, forcing the grit away. He had a momentary glimpse of the dark outline of his destination, and laughed as the sturdy truck came back to life with a turn of the key.
// Come on, kitten, don’t do anything stupid… //
Clumsily driving with his good foot, he bounced down the remains of the road, glad his rearview mirrors were gone. He didn’t want to see the chaotic energy chewing through the remains of the alien army behind him. The flashes of light died off just as abruptly as they had started. He dared a glance behind but was unable to see anything more than smoke. Keeping his eyes on his goal instead, he blinked as something twinkled brilliantly in the patch of relatively-dust free sky over the Tower.
// Another missile? //
This light seemed far smaller than the others. Descending through the air with no particular purpose, it flickered and glimmered faintly as it fell.
He kept an eye on it as he drove, worried that it would explode as the others had on landfall. The fact that it was heading to the same place he wanted to be only made him more anxious, torn between holding back and letting it strike while he was still safely far away, and getting there first to warn anyone in its way.
// If Kuja is really in the Tower… and he took out the other missiles… surely he’d be aware of this one? //
Given the cat-man’s poor luck with the previous bomb he had survived, Laro wasn’t willing to stand idly by. Depressing the accelerator for all he was worth, he was still too far away. The strange glittering projectile hit the top floor of the Tower with a colorful explosion shattering the black monolith down to it’s very foundation, sending debris raining down in every direction. Laro ducked several fist-sized rocks that threatened to mash into him and swerved to miss a large chunk of wall. Peering through the smoky distance he could have sworn he saw headlights.
*****
// I must be completely out of my mind. //
Clay did the exact opposite of common sense as the dust cloud lifted, gunning his jeep back towards the still smoking wreckage of the Tower. He had promised after all. He hadn’t really expected things to get quite so dramatic, but he had promised to at least make an attempt to pick through the rubble for the courtesan. Then again --Clay coughed at a particularly acrid cloud of smoke-- Kuja hadn’t exactly told him it was worth the trouble. Cursing his folly, he drove as close as he could and then jumped out and tried to walk. The polished rock was scalding hot, even through boots and gloves.
“Kuja?”
// No one could have survived that, why bother to pretend? //
Slipping over a pile of shattered flooring, he peered through the dust only to have a large something flutter past his eyes. Worried that it might be some fiery debris he swatted it away and then recognizing it, snatched it out of the air. The elegant red feather was horribly out of place in the middle of the ruin.
// Hello… where did you come from…? //
A loud clatter of shifting rocks distracted him from the rare find, reminding him that the Tower was still collapsing into its final component parts. He really didn’t want to be caught under one of the massive pieces of plating. Looking up to get a better understanding of the relative stability of the area, he caught sight of someone gingerly picking their way through the ruins from the other side. Smoke swirled away and revealed Nazer, leaning heavily on his spear.
“….kuja?” His faint call was not entirely hopeful.
// How the hell did he know to come here? // Clay glanced upwards, realizing that the mage’s pyrotechnics had probably been one hell of a beacon for everyone in the field. Who else, after all, could have pulled a lunatic stunt of this size?
// Not like we have mages of his caliber just popping up all over… most of the new ones seem to get in trouble just figuring out how to boil water… //
Clay cupped his hands to his mouth, hoping to magnify his horse shout enough to be heard over the groaning and cracking ruins. “Hey! Over Here!”
Another feather flitted down, settling on his raised hands. He stared at the white bit of fluff in confusion, realizing that there were more of them now, settling softly on the wreckage just ahead.
// … masa kuja …//
For the first time in months, he was reminded that the name really was nothing more than a play on words. Their enigmatic mage seemed to possess by chance the same name as a fallen avatar.
// But he was called ‘Kuja’ from the beginning… we just didn’t know it… //
If it turned out that his argumentative friend had somehow sprouted swan wings, he wasn’t sure how well he’d cope. Religion had never been his strong point.
// First, just find the damn man. //
“… Gerrick? What the hell are you doing here?”
He was glad to note that Nazer-kai was too busy trying to navigate the rocks with a bad leg to have the strength to go for his throat immediately. Clay smiled grim welcome. “No time. Help me find him.”
“He’s here?” The general’s eyes betrayed his fear.
“Didn’t you see him land?” He asked, amazed anyone had missed it. “The guy just split this thing down the middle… I think he was trying to break his fall.”
“That was Masa?!”
Clay nodded, bemused by the falling feathers again. Holding out his hand he let one of the scarlet plumes settle on his palm. “… This must be his doing too, although hell if I know why.”
“Out of my way.” He let the general push past him, following closely as they felt their way through the rubble.
*****
“What the hell were you, bringing him here!” Laro couldn’t help but snarl as he banged his bad leg against a rock.
The urge to haul back and punch the younger officer was strong, but required more effort than the man deserved at the moment. Gerrick would be around later, if he still felt the need to kick him into next year, he wasn’t so sure that Masa could wait.
“Don’t you dare get sanctimonious with me Nazer, I was under orders! I don’t give a damn whether you are angry or not. It was never up to you to decide when and how Kuja would fight!” Gerrick expression was just as wild as his own must be. For the first time, he noticed the heavy soot smears covering the man’s clothing, fingers bloodied from their efforts in shifting the crushed rubble. He rested a minute against a broken bit of wall, giving the soldier an exasperated look.
“… If not me… then who?”
“He made up his own mind about it. Of course.” The officer scrubbed at the back of his head in tired acceptance. “Just pushed and pushed and pushed until we finally agreed.”
“Oh.”
Dust was everywhere, as was a generous fall of brilliant crimson feathers. Looking up, he watched as more of the rare plumes curled and wafted earthwards on the breeze. Laro blanked out on the actual moment of finding Masa’s sprawled form. Hobbling around a tilted slab of flooring, he glimpsed a pale arm outstretched on a bed of more of the exotic feathers and the next thing he was aware of was the incredible pain in his leg as he knelt in the rubble next to the cat-man’s body. At first it seemed impossible that the man could still be alive. Laid out in the center of the wreckage like a broken doll, covered in little more than rags and loose feathers, Kuja didn’t respond to his name.
Gerrick slid down next to him, barely avoiding triggering a small landslide of masonry as he too came to rest amid the feathers. “Shit, he’s still alive, isn’t he? Poor bastard.”
“Shut up!” He didn’t have the energy to put up with the younger officer’s cynicism. How anyone could be so callous in the face of such a nightmare was beyond his understanding. “… He won’t die… He can’t…”
Kuja’s eyes opened a fraction, staring up at the clouds a moment before blinking slowly and focusing on him. His pale lips moved, forming words that had no breath behind them.
“I’m sorry, kitten, I don’t understand…” Laro stroked some of the silvery hair away from the mage’s face, cursing when his fingers came away bloody. “Save your strength now, we’ll have you back in camp as soon as we can.”
“… /how/…?”
It took two breaths before he felt confident that he could look at Gerrick without wanting to rip the man apart. He kept his words to a minimum. “Go find something we can use as a stretcher.”
“We shouldn’t move him at all.” The man disagreed. “He may have a broken spine.”
“He won’t get any better laying around here!” The measuring look Gerrick gave him left him feeling cold. “What?”
“… you are so fucking selfish.”
“Selfish!”
“Look at him, Nazer.” Gerrick gestured down. “Really. Look. Knowing what we know, that there is no cure for him, do you honestly want to force him to linger?”
“I…” There was no question, Masa was in pain. Every shallow breath he managed rattled his lungs, and caused precious blood to drip from his nose and mouth. Bruising hinted at other severe problems beneath the skin. With the feathers everywhere, his lover reminded him of nothing more than a broken winged bird, smashed to earth.
// … This would have been what happened that first time too, except he was over the ocean.... //
Laro could remember the strange storm, his aborted suicide, and the way Masa had crashed into the sea as well as if it had only happened days ago. Strange to think they had come so far only to end up back where they had begun. “… I don’t know. I don’t know that anyone can force him to do something if his heart is set against it. All I know is I have to try. You know?”
He cradled Masa’s face in his hand, wishing he knew what the mage wanted. “If he survived that all I can assume, is that he did because he wanted to live… at least a little. I won’t do anything to take that decision away from him.”
“You’re both crazy.” Gerrick sighed and stood. “Wait here, I’ll see what I can find. Maybe the radio will start working again and we can call for help.”
“Thanks.”
Masa was watching him quietly, half-aware of him as he lay preoccupied with the simple act of breathing. Delicate fingers curled against the bed of feathers. Laro reached and plucked one of the lustrous red feathers out of his lover’s hair, marveling at it. More drifted down from the sky with every passing minute.
“Be patient while longer, kitten. I’ll make things right again. I promise.”
*****
*****
-- today’s vocab phrase: ‘Gunship Diplomacy’
Lunar