Love Her and Despair (28)

[auronlu]

Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 28: "Juno"
Final Fantasy X/X-2 (Yes, both. AU.)
Characters: Auron, Paine, Baralai, Nooj, Rikku, Elma, Isaaru
Rating: G
Word Count: 2500
Navigation: Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Map of Pilgrimage - Links to All Chapters

Our Story So Far: Thirteen years into High Summoner Yuna's Calm, a new Sin is suddenly the least of Spira's problems. Cid has been possessed by Shuyin and launched an attack on Bevelle. Summoner Isaaru, his guardians and Al Bhed allies have arrived in a second airship to stop him, but Bevelle's defenses have been turned against them as well.

---

"Paine?" Isaaru said. "Nay, that is Juno, Captain of the Guard of St. Bevelle."

"That's all we need," said Elma.

"Lemme go, you big lunk!" Rikku said, squirming under Auron's coat. "They've got Pops!"

"Rikku, he's right," Maroda said. "They're bluffing. But they might shoot you."

Some kinder god than Yevon had kept anyone from tumbling through the gaping rent in the floor. The only serious wound among them was a bloody gash in Maroda's forehead. Isaaru was patching him with Cura and providing a patient ear to his swearing. A burst of static from the intercom suggested that someone, at least, was still alive on the flight deck, but whatever Gippal or Shinra had to say was unintelligible.

Auron released his grip on Rikku and stood, shouldering away fallen gratings and pipes. "Wait here."

"Sir Auron!" Isaaru said, attention divided between white magic and wayward guardian.

"Let your guardians handle this," Auron said. The flyer shifted under his weight as he vaulted over the railing, giving Maroda something else to grumble about.

"I'll go too. Captain Juno knows me," Elma said, shaking off the terror that had reduced hardened soldier to a knot of limbs wrapped around a seat for the last three minutes of the descent. "We'll get this sorted out, Rikku, don't worry."

Despite her agility, the Crusader lagged behind, laboring over the alien landscape of bins and crates and fallen struts reduced to confusing heaps of shadow. Auron hopped from one precarious foothold to the next, careless of jagged metal. For a moment he stood at the buckled edge looking down, then he put out a boot and stepped off. They saw his coat fly up, flapping, as he dropped from sight.

Hitting the ground hard, Auron crumpled to his knees in a semicircle of warrior monks he had spotted from above. The muzzles of their rifles lowered like booms, tracking him as he came down. So far so good. The hiss of drawn steel on his blind side, less good. That meant another gamble. Auron froze, resisted the urge to draw and parry. A sword almost as large as his own flashed out in an arc that ended with the sharpened edge resting against his collar.

Finding his head still attached, Auron played out his hand. "We surrender," he said. "Where's Cid?"

"Who's we?" the swordswoman demanded, setting her left hand under her right and doubling her grip in a silent message whose language he well understood.

There was a crash and spray of sparks on the pavement behind her. A section of the tower's high walkways had tumbled down, shattering on impact. Other burning heaps, piled up like Macalania's midwinter bonfires around the plaza, provided the only illumination. Warrior monks scattered, dodging flying embers. Their leader did not waver.

"Auron," he said. "Guardian to Summoner Isaaru. We've come to stop Cid."

Crimson eyes narrowed behind the slit of the woman's helm. That minute gesture threw him off-balance as the sword had not. The world flipped inside-out: for a moment he was a Farplane ghost gazing up (or was it down?) at one of the living. Monk's armor masked her features, yet the lean woman who spoke with a sword could have been his own child challenging him with Lulu's calculating gaze. There was even a silver ponytail curled on her shoulder, mirror to his. What was it Nooj had said? Fate toying with us. But no, this was no girl-child of thirteen. Auron purged his mind of ridiculous thoughts before the pyreflies came nagging.

"On an Al Bhed ship?" she said.

Several rifles swung away from him. Elma had used the brief distraction of falling debris to cover her own jump. She rolled and came up in a crouch with her hands raised. "Tell your men to hold their fire, Captain," she said. "He's telling the truth. Let us pass. Bevelle's safety depends on it."

"Commander?" The captain's shock was subsumed in a frown. Her sword did not budge. "You were last seen at Djose, presumed dead, leading a forbidden operation against Sin. You return in an Al Bhed ship, wearing Al Bhed issue, on the eve of an Al Bhed attack. I repeat, who is 'we'?"

"Lord Isaaru, his guardians, and Cid's people, who aren't any happier about this attack than we are," Elma said. "Come on, Captain. You know I'd never sell out my own troops."

"Then...why?"

"We don't have time for a full debriefing!" Elma snapped. "Look. We were trying to save the fayth statue at Djose, got caught in Sin's backwash, and it chucked us out in Al Bhed territory. When we arrived, Elder Cid went berserk. He shot us— even shot his own daughter— and took off for Bevelle. He's not in control of his actions, Juno. Some kind of spirit's possessed him. I know it sounds crazy."

"Yes," the woman said, voice and mouth going flat. "Yes, it does." She stepped back, lifting her sword up and away. "Cid's in custody. Tell Isaaru to get down here."

"You'll vouch for his safety?" Auron said.

She shrugged. "That's up to Maester Baralai. He'll be along shortly."

Stalemate, but at least it was one step further. Auron waited until her followers had lowered their weapons, then turned and raised a fist.

"Whoa, whoa!" Rikku's voice drifted down from above. "Lemme get the emergency chute open. We don't all have to be stupid."

There was a brief delay while an inflatable ramp popped open and unfurled, to the consternation of the palace guards. Rikku bounded down first, running smack into Auron's arm as the row of rifles came back up.

"Pops," she said, going white.

On the opposite side of the plaza from the palace, lying across the broken spires of the College of St. Bevelle, a dark hulk lay smoking like the bones of a whale carcass silhouetted against the ruddy sky. Green flames danced over the ruptured bulbs of exploded fuel tanks. An acrid reek of burning fuel and metal hung in the air, reminding him of Zanarkand's death-throes. Fate had finally caught up with a thousand-year-old-relic from that ancient city.

"He's alive," Juno said. "We found Cid unconscious on the street. No sign of other survivors."

"Yeah, he took off without a crew." Rikku exhaled. "Look, I know you're pretty pissed at him and all, but he's still my dad. I've gotta see him."

She might as well have petitioned a streetlamp. Juno had gone rigid, staring at the awkward figure disentangling himself from the ramp's fabric, which had snagged on his artificial leg. Eyeing her, Auron stepped back to shield Isaaru.

"Paine," Nooj said, meeting her scrutiny with a melancholy smile. "Good to see you're all right."

Coolly, she turned away from him and addressed the rest of the party. "Lord Isaaru. If you and your guardians would come this way, please."

"Juno, wait!" A man too young for his white hair had emerged from the palace along with a ragged group of clergy. Stumbling, coughing, several were barely moving under their own power. He passed off the young acolyte he was carrying to two monks and hurried towards Juno. "We need to get the injured to safety. Can you spare some of your squad?"

She nodded. "Lassen. Virocha. Rand. Escort the wounded to Yuna's Cloister." Three warrior monks saluted and shouldered their rifles, moving off to join the evacuees.

"Good work." Baralai halted beside her, breathing hard. His face, hair and clothes were sooty, and the hem of his coat was burnt. "Is this all of them?"

"There may be more on the ship."

"Maester Baralai." Isaaru bowed deeply in Yevon's prayer. "Are you hurt? Please allow me to—"

"Summoner Isaaru." Baralai's hand dropped to a compact sidearm, twin to the one that hung on Juno's hip. "I must compliment you on a brilliantly-executed pilgrimage...or, should I say, a coup?"

"Baralai, you misunderstand—"

"Do I?" He took a step to one side, smiling grimly as Auron moved to mirror him. "A mock pilgrimage to win the people of Spira to your side. A new Operation Mi'ihen, expressly against the oath we swore when we Four took office. The southern Crusaders and Maester Lucil neutralized at Djose. Orders sent to Bevelle for mass evacuations, ensuring that Shelinda and I would be distracted, the city plunged in chaos. And Sin, after two years in which it has been a threat to no one, targeting vital centers of Yevon while sparing the Al Bhed. I'd like to know what you're using to control it."

"Neutralized?" Elma said, facing off with Juno. Elma and Maroda were shoulder to shoulder with Auron now.

"Hey!" Rikku said. "For your information, Sin just attacked us!"

"So you say." Baralai gestured to the palace complex, whose roofs were starting to catch fire. "But this isn't Sin's doing, is it? You probably thought we'd have evacuated by now. The perfect cover for Isaaru to seize Vegnagun with his Al Bhed friends."

"Baralai!" Gippal called. He was skiing down the ramp, nearly crashing into Nooj. "Come on, man. You think I'd go along with that kind of double-faced Yevon crap?"

"You tell me," Baralai said. "Three weeks ago, I entrusted you with classified spheres to deliver to Elder Cid. Now he launches an attack. You arrive right behind him with Nooj, of all people. Something doesn't add up."

"That's what we're trying to tell you!" Rikku said, waving her hands in frustration. "My Pops is out of control! We've got to stop him!"

"Baralai," Isaaru said. "I understand your doubts. But something has happened to Elder Cid. The same thing that happened to your friend Nooj thirteen years ago, when your squadron was destroyed by something that seized men's minds."

"He's right," Nooj said, stepping out from behind the wall of guardians. "If you want to shoot someone...shoot me. But let them pass. If Cid reaches Vegnagun, Spira doesn't stand a chance."

"I don't take orders from you anymore, Nooj," Baralai said. He raised his gun. "But maybe I'll make an exception, for old time's sake."

Gippal made an abortive move towards his own weapon, scanning the ring of warrior monks with rifles at the ready. "Not cool, Baralai. You know that's what he wants."

"Is it?" Baralai said. "Whose death are you seeking, Nooj? Yours...or ours?"

Nooj gave a thin smile and raised his empty hand, palm outward. The other gripped a pipe he was using as a cane.

"Don't." Juno flicked her sword upwards, blocking Baralai's aim.

"He shot us in the back, Paine," Baralai said. "He shot you in the face."

"Paine's dead," she snapped. "But they might be telling the truth."

There was a growing commotion on one of the terraced walkways disappearing around the College. "What now?" Baralai sighed and lowered his weapon. "All right. Lock them up, Captain."

"Maester Baralai!" a soldier shouted, running towards them. "The prisoner's escaped! We're searching for him now, sir!"

"What?" Baralai turned. "Juno, have your men seal off the—"

"Don't breathe!" Rikku shouted.

A handful of pellets showered down, exploding in bright yellow flashes. A few rifles went off, but their bullets skipped harmlessly against the pavement when the arms holding them slackened. In surreal unison, the entire circle of warrior monks slumped to the ground along with Baralai and Juno. Most of Isaaru's party managed to stagger clear, eyes streaming.

"Yeah!" Rikku jabbed her fists in the air. "Oh, whoops. Remedies on Isaaru and Machina Man. Hang on, Maroda, let the pollen settle a bit, or you'll need one too. Gippal, is Shinra okay?"

"Mm-hm. He's just minding the shop. Yo, Elma, gimme one of those." Gippal took a phial from her and waited for the cloud to dissipate, then trotted back to rouse Nooj while Elma and Maroda tended Isaaru.

Leaning on them, Isaaru peered groggily at the semicircle of prone monks. "Oh, dear. I do hope they're—"

"No time." Auron turned towards the palace. "Look."

Dodging heaps of smoldering wreckage, a blocky figure had emerged from the side-terrace and was dashing across the plaza. Armored soldiers rattled in pursuit. All but one of them balked outside the palace entrance, craning their necks and pointing at the flames and smoke curling over the roof. One kept going, disappearing through the open doors on Cid's heels.

"Come on!" Rikku said.

"Hey, Nooj, you coming?" Gippal held out an arm. "Ferry's leaving the dock."

"No," Nooj said. "I'll slow you down. Get going."

"In that case, I'm staying too." Gippal waved a hand. "Remember what I said, Auron. Cid'll take it out of my hide if you kill him."

"Understood." Auron followed Rikku, who was already pelting after her father. The others hurried to catch up.

"Good luck," Elma called over her shoulder.

"You too, babe. Hey, after this is over, I know this great restaurant in Luca—"

Nooj gave a soft snort. "Save your breath."

"What?" Gippal retrieved Nooj's prop and set it under his hand. "Okay, so, Vegnagun and Sin are about to blow this joint to smithereens. But just in case—"

"Forget it." He looked down at the sprawl of bodies around them. "Nightcap. About ten minutes, right?"

"You sure you wanna be here when they wake up?" Gippal nudged Baralai with a foot. "This isn't gonna be pretty."

"Juno." Nooj pronounced the name with deliberate care.

"Yeah, I noticed. Bar said she'd changed a lot." Gippal stooped to pry Baralai's pistol out of his fingers and tossed it away. "Your call. I could still use a navigator, after all."

---

Next Chapter: Illusions That Exalt Us

---

Author's Notes

Meta: Posting a maester in Luca and having the Grand Maester travel frequently between there and Bevelle solves the problem that the two main power/population centers of Yevon are widely separated. But it creates another problem. Lucil can't oversee the warrior monks from Luca, so they've become a police force/town militia reporting to the civil administrator of Bevelle. Who is also the maester in charge of the judicial branch, at the moment.

While Baralai and Lucil are less power-hungry than their predecessors, this arrangement raises the old spectre of Bevelle/Luca political tensions (See my geopolitics in FFX post). There's always the fear the Crusaders could become pawns to a maester and/or populist leader trying to seize power again.

Comments

Yikes...

[vandevere.livejournal.com]

Now, I really have to wonder just who Juno is...

She sure gave Auron a start...

I wonder how many more shocks he can take before he unravels completely?

Vandevere

Re: Yikes...

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

Take another look at what Baralai said to "Juno".

;)

[melchar.livejournal.com]

As Han Solo said, "This keeps getting better and better" [but then, he wasn't having fun -reading- about what the Star Wars characters were going thru.

This is -wonderful- to read - and poor Auron!

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I'm almost too amused by Gippal hitting on Elma to respond properly to anything else in this chapter, but I'll try. ;) First, the part that you knew I would react to: this is a great role for Paine/Juno, and I really like how you set up the former members of the Crimson Squad in opposition to each other (Baralai and Paine vs. Gippal and Nooj). I also think that suspicious Baralai works very well.

Also the way Rikku gets them out of the scrape is more than appropriate. :)

Very nice moving along of the story and fleshing out the back in one scene of mostly dialogue!

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

Yay, you're here!

Rikku's little pop grenades are so useful.... when a scene bogs down, boom, moving right along!

Only trouble is, now I've got 15 extra warrior monks waking up at about the same time as Baralai and Paine. I need to drop them down a manhole or something. They got in the way horribly; I wanted to get Baralai and Gippal and Paine all aiming weapons at each other, but I couldn't explain NO defenses waiting for the airship, nor could I get Gippal's gun out without 15 warrior monks shooting holes in him. Ah well, can't do a dramatic mirror of everything in both games, or it would get boring.

Baralai has got to be a very paranoid person, despite years of working with decent people.

Phew, I'm starting to get the hang of writing more than 3 characters in a scene. I fall back on dialog, yes indeed. (I also played every last bit of those Crimson Squad videos you gave me the link for before each writing session, while doing dishes or chores. I have the whole batch on my HD. They help me "set" everyone's voices in my head.)

[heaven-monument.livejournal.com]

I read your post on ff_epicfic, by the way. Your prose is so organised, even with the retcons (I'm rather scared of using them because I think people would notice and go, "hey, he sucks, he retconned!" but obviously yours doesn't suck and so I feel slightly better about mine...). It's one very intricate lattice of sub-plots and characters and history and happenings. Lovely.

Thank you!

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

I've never retconned before, but I figure that even Babylon 5 had a few tiny continuity glitches, despite its author/producer, an English major with OCD, having planned its backstory and roughed out the story arc for 10 years before he got a chance to produce it.

Fanfiction is performance art, unless you can force yourself to write an entire story start to finish before posting any of it. I can't. My will is weak. I crave the cheese of seeing that 3 people are genuinely enjoying what I'm working on.

Thank you all so very much for the cheese. :)

As performance art, fanfic will be imperfect. Even good theater companies will have the rare flubbed line in the middle of a performance. As long as mistakes are very rare, you usually won't remember them later.

The funny thing is that before this story, I took pride in my prose, description, dialog, and was entirely incapable of plot. Now my prose has atrophied, and my plot-muse is spining new threads in every direction.

[cumuluscastle.livejournal.com]

I like your description of Auron's gravity defying leaping. From his overdrives (I almost said Limit Breaks) we can see he has this kind of agility. I also enjoy his quick dispassionate assessment of the threat before him and his odds of escaping/surviving. It seems very like a seasoned fighter.

I was a little confused about the Juno/Paine thing, until Paine herself explained that she'd changed her name out of grief.

There's a lot happening here, but you've handled the action well. It's lucky Rikku was there with her well-timed knock out bombs.

I think it's good you had the 'old friends' greet each other with suspicion, doubt, and threats of violence. Anything else would be suspicious given Nooj's history and the long antagonism between Al Bhed and Yevon. It also provides a good distinction between these characters and Isaaru's saintly acceptance - which reminds me that his shock at the treatment of Macalania Temple had beautiful added impact given his usual relatively sanguine nature.

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

I need to edit this chapter a little more carefully. Paine's name change is a bit of a kludge to cover for a minor slip I made a few chapters ago. A few chapters back, nobody reacted when Nooj and Gippal discussed Paine. When it came time to write this chapter, I realized that Isaaru would know Paine quite well as the leader of the warrior monks. Also, Elma would probably butt heads with her (first, because Elma doesn't get along with the warrior monks in general, and second, because Elma would insist on supervising Lucil's security escort in Bevelle, even though that would normally fall to warrior monks and the captain of the guard). I can't believe neither of them said, "Paine? You mean the captain of the guard?!" So I had a choice between retconning the chapter or coming up with a reason why they didn't recognize the name.

I finally settled on the name change, but found it hard to slip it in gracefully, with all the other business that needed to happen in this chapter.

[cumuluscastle.livejournal.com]

Do you know I had to look up "retconning." I have seen people use it before, but never really paid attention. I didn't mind the name change thing much once I saw there was a reason for it.

I look forward to reading more!

[muggy-mountain.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, yes. Brilliant retcon.

Auron's tactical wisdom shines here. He's come so very far from the kid he was on Braska's pilgrimage, or even on Yuna's.

You do such good work with establishing Significant Relationships with just a word or two. One can feel the history there, even if they cannot explicitly name it. And poor Rikku! She just emanates frustration.

You've set up a pretty perilous tower (pun intended, haha) and it's going to be verrry interesting to see it all come down.

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping those who haven't gotten a huge dose of Nooj/Paine courtesy of owlmoose & co won't find that thread a bit forced, cursory, or abrupt.

I'm also curious how you see Auron developing tactically since Yuna's pilgrimage. I have a strong sense of who he is and how he's aged, but I can't really put my finger on changes, other than a growing sense of futility, and giving more of a damn about friends than Spira.

[trekqueen.livejournal.com]

In the words of Gippal... dude, not cool, baralai. I feel like punching him myself.