A/N: When I was developing the concept of this story. I wanted to include two of Lightning's previous character traits before they were passed on to other characters. The first trait is her silver hair color which was eventually passed on to Hope, and the other being the flirtatious attribute of her personality which was eventually passed on to Fang. Both of these traits are present in Éclair's Lightning thief persona. Lastly, when she's active as her thief persona she wears specially optimized purple colored eye contacts.
Hope is 24 and Éclair/Lightning is 27 within this story. Cocoon is a technologically advanced utopia while the country situated below it named Gran Pulse is a third world country. Over the past few centuries, Gran Pulse has been ravaged by war amongst its people and is a war-torn nation. Roughly, about a century before the start of this story a Cocoon airship crashed landed on Pulse and it marked the start of what was to befall Gran Pulse in the upcoming years. This airship carried some of Cocoon's brilliant minds along with some of Cocoon's social elite. A small group of pulsian people came rushing to the crash site to explore the foreign object which had fallen from the sky. They were shocked to come into contact with actual people from a nation, which they had only ever heard myths or legends about. It was the first meeting between two very vastly different worlds.
To make a long story short, the pulsians helped the Cocoon citizens evacuate the damaged airship and invited them to stay in their village. Naturally, these Cocoon citizens were curious about the foreign nation of Gran Pulse and did a little exploring of their own and eventually struck gold. They found that Gran Pulse was littered with very rich resources, minerals, etc. that no one had ever come across on Cocoon. And thus, with greed in their hearts and the Cocoon government in their back pocket they began to excavate the land of Gran Pulse for years to come. In addition, to using Gran Pulse's own citizens to do so. While the social elite continued to build up their business empires, working in tow with the Cocoon government to keep the very existence of Gran Pulse hidden from Cocoon's citizens.
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy XIII.
Title: Dancing with a Thief
Rating: T for now, but it may eventually increase to M
Summary: In Bodhum, there's an infamous masked female thief who goes by the name Lightning. Hope Estheim is the new addition to the Bodhum detective police force working on the Lightning thief case, but will this masked thief prove to be much more than he can handle?
Chapter 1 The Elusive Thief Lightning Part One
12 a.m. Bodhum Favet Art Gallery
"Look up there she's on the rooftop! Quickly place the searchlight on her!" A male police officer called out. The talk of the town the masked thief Lightning had made yet another one of her routine nightly appearances.
She was clad in her traditional formfitting black leather jumpsuit, black leather thigh high boots, black eye mask, and fully equipped with her black utility belt, which housed all sorts of handy technological gadgets which aided her during all of her heists. A medium sized cotton charcoal colored satchel bag was slung over her shoulder carrying her prize of the night the Twin Shiva Sisters statue.
"Tsk. When will these guys ever learn?" She mused. Lightning was running at full speed across the art gallery building's rooftop before the bright light of the searchlight shone down on her. "Damn! They've locked onto my location."
"You won't get away this time!" She heard a familiar voice which she had come to know all too well. And sure enough with one glance back over her shoulder there he was in full pursuit of her Snow Villiers, one of the detectives who has been trying to capture her since she first started this thief gig roughly two years ago.
Lightning pressed on her wireless communicator to contact her support Maqui. He was a 20 year old all-around tech genius and mechanic who she inevitably swept up into her little crusade. He was the mastermind who created all of the gadgets she used. While Lightning was out in the field, he operated safely within the confines of their main base which was located back at the Farron Manor within a secret area of the manor. "Maqui have you located a feasible, secure escape route for me yet? I'm running out of rooftop here." After a few seconds of computing and scanning the area where she currently was on his computer screen he was ready to deliver the good news. "As a matter of fact, I do. You're going to need to run towards the roof's railing on your right and get your grappling gun ready there should be a building that you can use to get out of there." He answered coolly through the wireless communicator.
"Understood." She did exactly as Maqui had instructed her and ran towards the railing with her grappling gun ready. She could feel Snow closing in on her, but it was already too late. She saw the building that would be her exit ticket out of there, which was an advertising firm building and she sure in hell wasn't going to miss it.
She swiftly took aim at the building's railing and reeled herself to safety before disappearing under the veil of night.
All that Snow could do was watch helplessly as she eluded capture once again. "Dammit!" He pounded his fist on the art building's railing in frustration.
The next day, Palumpolum Estheim Residence
"Are you sure about this, son?" Bartholomew asked doubtfully. "Yes, I am", Hope replied as he finished loading the last remnants of his things into the trunk of his dark green convertible, before shutting it closed.
Hope was considered the pride and joy of the Palumpolum detective police force. Despite only being 24 years of age, he was viewed as a detective genius. Due to his impeccable intuitiveness, insightfulness, and deductive skills he was able to solve many of Palumpolum's formidable cases.
And due to his great skills his services were needed elsewhere, so he was being transferred to the Bodhum detective agency to help solve and combat one of Bodhum's ongoing and current difficult cases which was the Lightning thief case.
Of course, his coworkers didn't want to see him shuffled off to another agency, but they understood that he needed to go as his presence was requested by a fellow sister agency.
"I'm sorry that I'm taking time out of your precious vacation time, mom." Hope said apologetic. Nora immediately walked over to Hope to give him a hug. "That's complete nonsense, Hope. You're not taking away any of my time. Besides, what kind of mother would I be if I wasn't here to see my own son off?" Nora held Hope back at arm's length to get one last good look at her son. "I can't tell you how very proud of you that I am Hope. I still remember that shy cute little boy who used to always cling tightly to my side."
"Mom…", Hope said rather embarrassed. Hope then proceeded to over to his dad to say his goodbyes. "You take care of yourself." "Don't worry I will."
"You know that if you ever grow tired of solving these cases you're always more than welcomed to take over the family pharmaceutical business."
"Heh. Thanks for the offer, but I don't see that happening anytime soon." Hope quipped.
Hope strolled over to the driver's side of his car opened the door before sliding into the driver's seat and fastening his seat belt as his parents looked on.
Hope turned his attention towards where his parents were standing. "I'll be sure to come visit you guys." "Alright. And Hope be sure to have at least some fun and don't work yourself to death. Who knows? You may even find yourself a cute girlfriend while you're there." Nora said smiling.
That was the last straw he needed to get out of here quickly before his mother embarrassed him any further. He knew that his parents meant well but they could come across as overprotective at times. Not to mention the movers were already at his new abode waiting for him to arrive so he didn't need to delay any longer in getting there.
Hope waved his parents goodbye before reversing out of the driveway of the house that he had come to call home for the past 24 years.
Hope's Bodhum Penthouse Apartment
It was a little past 5 o'clock in the afternoon when Hope had finished unpacking all of his things into his new living quarters.
He collapsed onto his cream white sofa in the living room as he was dead tired from the huge move. He liked his new living space as it was spacious, gave him his much needed valued privacy, and overall suited his needs.
He rose from where he was lying on the sofa to stand in front of his apartment's panoramic windows, which had a spectacular breathtaking view of downtown Bodhum.
A swirl of emotions began to engulf him. He felt nervous, anxious, and excited to begin work tomorrow. While he was in Palumpolum this particular case that he's assigned to made national headlines. Needless to say it's an extremely high profile case and because it is there's all the more pressure on him for him to solve it.
"Lightning, huh? I wonder what her motivations could possibly be?" Hope pondered. Naturally, being a detective he was curious about what her motivations were. She didn't seem like your average, everyday typical run-of-the-mill thief. There were many things that he wanted to uncover about her. She had this mysterious aura surrounding her that he strangely felt was challenging for him to unravel it. Hope was confident that he would solve this case and find out Lightning's true identity.
A/N: That was the first chapter. I hope that you enjoyed it. If you're still a bit confused about the history regarding Gran Pulse don't worry because it will be fully disclosed as the story goes on. I just wanted to give a brief overview regarding the history between Cocoon and Gran Pulse and I didn't want to give too much away as it ties heavily into certain characters and plot points within the story, which I want to keep a surprise until I get to those specific parts within the story's narrative.