Sazh was screwed, and not in a good way.

The Osprey Mk IV transport was one of the most popular aircraft in the world. It featured four engines and boasted outstanding range, durability, and manoeuvrability. Its default sensor package wasn’t ideal, but it could easily be upgraded with more modern equipment. It could even be outfitted with weaponry although it wasn’t designed with combat as its primary focus.

All in all, Sazh would happily rate it as one of the ten most pleasant aircraft in the world to fly.

Normally.

Unfortunately, his current situation was anything but normal.

“Well...” Sazh stared at the instrument panel. “There goes Engine 1... and Engine 4... and Engine 3.” He sighed and ignored the cacophony of bestial cries echoing through the air as Grimm hammered away at the transport’s fuselage and clawed at the windshield. “On the upside, at least Engine 2 looks...” He trailed off as the green light on Engine 2 turned an ominous orange. “Never mind.” He took a deep breath and then turned in the pilot’s chair. “Vanille! We’re down to half an engine. You need to get at least one of the others back up and running, or we’re not going to make it.”

The fox Faunus lowered the heavily modified assault rifle she’d been shooting through one of the holes in the transport. “Seriously? There’s no way I can go out there and fix the engines with all the aerial Grimm flying around.”

Sazh bit his lip. She had a point. If she went out there alone, she’d never get the repairs done. The problem was that the only other person on the transport other than him and Vanille was Chirpy. After all, this was supposed to have been a quick trip to grab something from an archaeological dig site. The pickup had gone well enough, but they’d been swarmed by Grimm on the way back. Naturally, they’d been forced into one of the technological dead zones, so calling for help was basically impossible. 

The console in front of him blinked and then went blank. Great. They were now deep enough into the technological dead zone that his instruments had gone dead. On the upside, the engines should still be able to work... if Vanille could repair them. But to do that, someone would have to go out there with her.

For a moment, he considered sending Chirpy. The chocobo was certainly strong enough to protect her, but the aerial Grimm they were fighting made extensive use of ranged attacks. That would make it much more difficult for Chirpy, and there was a very real risk that they’d get swarmed since Chirpy wouldn’t really be able to retaliate if the Grimm kept their distance.

Hmmm...

“Hey, Chirpy,” Sazh said, waving the chocobo over. “I need you to do something for me...”

X     X     X

“You’re letting Chirpy fly the transport?” Vanille wailed as they ran across the Osprey’s wing. She got to work on the battered engine immediately as Sazh opened fire with both of his large-calibre machine pistols. "He doesn’t even have opposable thumbs!”

“He can control the yoke with his beak,” Sazh shot back. He blew apart three Grimm in quick succession and delved more deeply into his Semblance. His aim sharpened even further, and his eyes were suddenly able to anticipate the movements of his opponents while discerning weaknesses he’d missed before. “And he’s been flying with me plenty of times. All he has to do is keep us level while you work.”

Vanille didn’t both to reply. Instead, she gave a wordless shriek and began to kick the engine. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Sazh shouted.

“This stupid thing is jammed!” Vanille growled as she drew her leg back and kicked the engine again. “Some stupid Grimm got its stupid skull stuck in the stupid anti-gravity core and now the stupid gravity manipulation coil won’t turn!” Vanille landed another kick, and there was a sputtering whine before a low, harmonic hum filled the air. “There! Now, the stupid thing is working!”

“Good!” Sazh peeled off half a dozen more shots. A spray of Grimm spines rocketed toward them, and he grabbed the device at his belt and held it up. The sphere of metal unfurled into a large shield, and he winced as spines clattered off the makeshift defence. The Aura reinforced metal held up to the barrage, and he yanked the shield aside and went back to shooting. “Can you get the other engines going? We can make it out with just this one, but if we can get the other two up and running, we might have the speed to outrun these guys.”

“Well, we’re already out here...”

X     X     X

Sazh landed the transport at his ranch and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Good flying, buddy.” He patted Chirpy’s back. “Damn good flying.”

The chocobo chortled. “Kweh.” He was now the only chocobo in history to have ever piloted a transport, albeit only for ten of the most terrifying minutes of his life.

“The ground has never felt better,” Vanille cried, throwing herself to the ground and hugging the nearest rock. “We’re alive!”

“Sazh Katzroy.”

Sazh froze as his wife, Lahna, marched toward him with murder in her eyes. 

“You said you were going out on a short trip with Vanille. Now here you are with your transport looking like it’s gone through a war! Why is Vanille hugging a rock, and what’s that you said about Chirpy flying?”

“...” Sazh took a deep breath. “Well, honey, it’s like this...”

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

Just a cat and her bear/dog.

Something a lot of people don't realise is that Lahna was a top-class Atlas analyst before retiring alongside Sazh to set up the ranch where she works as the manager and coordinator for a lot of the things it does. The ranch is basically their child, just as much as Dajh is.

The reason she gets aggravated at Sazh about doing stuff like this is because she's one of the few people who knows his entire service record. Sazh has a nasty habit of pushing himself too hard and getting involved in insanely scary stuff that would kill anyone else. Until Saviour arrived, he basically had the most powerful combat analysis and combat perception Semblance in the world.

This meant that Sazh was extremely dangerous. Think the John Wick /Equaliser of Remnant. His Semblance can't conjure weapons or unleash attacks like Saviour, but you give him time to get a suitable weapon or prepare, and he's absolutely going to put you in a box.

And trouble seems to find him, no matter what he does, and Lahna knows how close he has come to dying on so many occasions. She was, actually, his handler back in those days, which is how they met.

Sazh's codename as an Atlas specialist (which he did on the side - publicly he was a pilot) was Excalibur.

Why?

If he was deployed into the field, Atlas won.

To this day, only the most senior members of Atlas military (e.g., Ironwood) know that he was Excalibur.

Lahna's callsign was Merlin because she was something of a wizard when it came to getting Sazh the support he needed in the field and conjuring up answers when he radioed in for intel and a backup plan.

Both of them made a very deliberate choice to not encourage Dajh to go into the military. They didn't want that for him, knowing that he'd probably be pressured to follow in Sazh's footsteps since his Semblance is something similar.

The reason they only have one kid (Dajh) is also the reason Sazh stepped down as Excalibur and set up the ranch with Lahna.