A/N: New story that is a FFXIII and DC/Justice League cross over. Rated M for more violence than what is normally found in a JLA FF, but it serves a purpose and is not there just to be gross. There is also some mature language, as I would imagine some would use in the DC world.

Summary: A dimensional disturbance drops a young l'Cie in Gotham. She has large gaps in her memory, and it will be a difficult time finding acceptance in this new world. Meanwhile, unknown to anyone, an evil from her world came along for the ride…

0000000

"Where is the Joker?" Batman growled as he held the hapless thug against the wall.

It was all the young man in gang colors could do to sputter through broken teeth and a painfully shattered nose. "I- I don't know! I dun't F*cking know! I don't know 'nothing man!" he said through panicked wheezes.

This whole scene had an unpleasant sense of Déjà vu to the Batman. How many times had the Joker escaped after he had captured him? How many times had Batman gone around shaking down every thug he could get his hands on for information? Maybe it was time Wayne Enterprises found some excuse to fund Arkham Asylum, just so Batman could find an excuse to design the security systems himself during a "remodeling".

The Batman looked at the thug in front of him. Eyes wide, pupils dilated completely from fear, in pain and sputtering haplessly. The Batman was as certain as he could be that this scum who had tried to rob a liquor store was telling the truth. Still, it always played to be thorough.

"I'm warning you," Batman said, his white cowled eyes squinting dangerously. He slammed the thug against the alley wall hard enough to take his breath and make his bones creak, "you better tell me something I can use. Now!"

"I-I I don't know! There was some talk! About some dudes downtown! 'Lookin for a lot of muscle, ya know?! Maybe that's your guy! I dun' know 'nothin, I swear to God oh my God I don't know 'nothin, please!" the thug was nearly in tears now.

"Batman," said a feminine voice in his communicator, "this is Oracle. Something's happened. I think you need to look in to this, right now. Free to talk?"

Batman decided he had gotten all the useful information he was likely to get from the thug. He punched him one more time in the face to knock him senseless, then quickly and efficiently tied his hands and legs with zip ties.

The Batman stepped away from the thug and put his hand to his ear to activate his communicator. "What's going on? Is it the Joker?"

"Not likely," came the reply, "I picked up a dimensional disturbance in the art deco district about one minute ago. It lasted for about twenty seconds and then it disappeared."

Batman frowned. Dimensional disturbances were never good news in his experience. It often created a problem big enough that even the League felt compelled to get involved.

"What kind of dimensional disturbance?" asked Batman.

"Hold on," came the reply. After a few moments of keys clicking away over the open com, Oracle had her reply, "It seems to have been of both a temporal and spanning disturbance. Origin unknown."

Batman's frown deepened. A temporal disturbance meant whatever had presumably come through was from another time, either in the past or in the future. A spanning disturbance was just another way of saying that the point of origin was somewhere very far away. As in, not an alternative Earth, but probably from some planet who knew where in the universe. So this was a portal from another time, on another planet, on another dimension. Whatever had come through could literally be anything.

"Anything else you can tell me?" asked Batman.

"Not much," came the reply, "except for the amount of mass that may have come through. Given these power readings, I estimate that no more than sixty seven kilograms of mass could have come through the disturbance."

It wasn't much information to go on, but it did give him some hints. It was extremely unlikely given the difficulty and power requirements of these portals that something less than sixty seven kilograms of mass had come through. Usually portals are just big enough for whatever it is you want to send through. At sixty seven kilograms, there was a good chance that whatever had come through was humanoid. Throughout most of the universe alien races were surprisingly similar to humans in size, shape and mass. It was probably a good bet that some other dimensional being had come through.

"Oracle, get the GPD to pick up an armed robbery suspect at my location. I'm on my way to check on the disturbance."

"Copy that, Batman."

0000000

As Lightning slowly came to, the first sensation that hit her was the smell. It smelled of rot, like the filthiest dumpster she could ever imagine in all of Cocoon. It made her stomach twist uneasily, and a sudden wave of nausea made her think she might vomit. She put her hand down and tried to sit up from where she was laying.

It was then she realized she was lying in filthy, smelly water. Lightning struggled to sit up but another wave of nausea forced her to move more slowly. Little by little she managed to sit up and lean against a wall that was next to her, the effort momentarily exhausting her.

After a few minutes had passed and the fog in her mind beginning to clear, Lightning finally managed to crack open her eyes. She was sitting in a filthy alley, in a filthy puddle, next to a huge metal box she could only assume was a dumpster from the smell emanating from it. The alley was dark, strewn with garbage and filth. Lightning wrinkled her nose in disgust. Even the poorest neighborhoods in Cocoon kept their streets and alleys almost immaculately clean and well lit. Or so she had thought, until she ended up in this place.

Her face, hair and clothes were wet from the filthy water she had been laying in. Even now, sitting down she could feel the polluted water soaking though the thick water resistant material that made up her skirt. There was no way she was going to stay sitting in this puddle as her behind and her privates began to get soaked in that disgusting water. Lightning slowly began to stand up, using the wall as support as the occasional wave of nausea hit her. Still, she wasn't about to let a little sickness and roiling in her stomach stop her from taking control of the situation.

With one hand supporting against the wall, Lighting started to make her way to the opening of the alley. As she got further away from the dumpster and the stench, her nausea began to get better. When she got close to the entrance of the alley, she forced herself to let go of the wall and stand up straight and rigid before she stepped out in to the lights of the street. Lightning had her pride, and for all she knew she was still being hunted. She wasn't about to show weakness in front of anyone, friends or enemies, never mind that she was still recovering from whatever it was that had happened to her.

Lighting tried to recall how she had ended up in that alley, but her memories leading up to this moment were all a blur. A lot of her recent memories were a blur. She remembered being branded a l'Cie. There were some disjointed images of battles, she remembered being hunted by PsyCom and fighting alongside her fellow l'Cie. Something about finding their focus. Or stopping their focus. Or something. Her head began to pound, and a nasty pain was starting to take root behind her eyes. Why couldn't she remember?

Serah. She remembered Serah. Serah.. her sister. Her being turned in to crystal. That's right, she remembered that was her mission. To save Serah. But.. Why couldn't she remember clearly? Why where her memories leading up to becoming a l'Cie and afterwards a disjointed, jumbled mess?

Lightning shook her head. She could figure out all that stuff later. She had a mission now though, and she needed to act. First things first. Find out where I am, find a safe place to rest up and regroup. Find out what has been going on.

Feeling her strength returning, Lightning pulled out her weapon to check that it was still intact. Satisfied that it was, she holstered her blazefire saber. Wearily but with her head held high Lightning stepped out into the street.

She walked down the sidewalk, looking around. There was no one in sight. It must be very late in the night, as that was the only time one could ever expect to find a deserted street in most Cocoon settlements. Still something was off. The architecture… was somewhat primitive. A lot more blocky than she had seen anywhere in Cocoon. The lamps that kept the streets well lit… well, they seemed perhaps a little primitive somehow as well. The roads and streets and buildings all seemed to be made of some strange stone or rock like material, not like the metallic alloys that made up the structures and roads of every Cocoon town she had ever seen.

Where the hell was she? Was she in some Cocoon backwater that she had never been to before, somehow left out of the advancements fal'Cie had given the people of Cocoon? Where for some reason they didn't use the materials manufactured by the fal'Cie? It seemed impossible to Lightning that such a place excited. Lightning was starting to feel very uneasy about this whole place.

As she continued to walk, she passed what could only be store front windows. However there were symbols on the windows she had never seen before. By the context of where they were, it was pretty obvious that it was supposed to be writing or a sign of some kind advertising the goods inside the store. Lightning's uneasiness and tension grew tenfold. There was nowhere on Cocoon that used any different kind of writing system. She had even heard… no knew, she knew somehow that the writing on Pulse was not like this either. Pulse writing was different from that of Cocoon, but nothing like the writing she was seeing now. So who were these people, and where did this writing come from? Where was she?

Her rising unease was not helped when a vehicle pulled up around the corner. It looked like a four wheeled civilian transport that was common in some Cocoon cities that didn't require anti-grav capabilities to get around. But the design was completely alien to her. The vehicle was only fifty feet away and she had already been spotted. Lightning decided not to run, thinking that if these people were hostile it was better find out and disable them. If they weren't, maybe she could find some information as to where she was. As it approached her, she unconsciously sank lower in to a defensive stance. The white and blue vehicle drove up to her and stopped ten feet away from her. There was some kind of shield painted on the side door facing her. Shields as symbols usually meant military. Was this a military vehicle? Did they have some connection to PsyCom or the Guardian Corps?

Two doors opened on either side of the vehicle and two men wearing blue uniforms stepped out. Lightning took a half step back and put her hand on her gunblade, ready to fight at a moment's notice.

"Who are you? What do you want?" she demanded harshly.

They were two men, one tall and dark skinned, the other short and with blonde hair. To Lightning it seemed clear they were wearing some type of military uniform, but it seemed to be made of only regular fabrics, not the rubber/metal composites of most military uniforms. They also were not wearing full-cover helmets, the hallmark of any Cocoon military group. Still, just because they were not wearing standard Cocoon military gear did not make their potential danger any less.

The taller man looked at her oddly, while the shorter one gave her a hostile glare. A glare she returned right back. To her satisfaction Lightning could see that her glare made him hesitate and put a crack in his tough guy armor.

"What are you doing walking around these streets at three AM miss?" asked the taller one, "It's just a bit suspicious seeing as there aren't any bars or clubs open this late around here. One might think that you were up to some mischief with one of the businesses around here." The man talked to her in a cautious and suspicious tone, but the man wasn't being hostile yet. Lightning hesitated. Maybe she had misjudged who these guys were. Maybe they were private security. If she voluntarily left the area, maybe they might even be able to give her some answers.

"Hey, is that a weapon you got back there?" said the shorter man in a far more hostile tone, craning his neck to see what it was she had her hand on behind her back, "If it is you're going to have to surrender it and come with us." The man took a threatening step towards her and put his hand on a device on his hip that could only have been one thing.

A pistol.

In a blink Lightning whipped out her weapon and converted it to blade form, holding it menacingly at her side. Both of the men jumped at the suddenness and blinding speed of the movement. After about two seconds of gaping they both drew their weapons and pointed them at her.

"Put the sword down right now 'mam, no need for anyone to get violent." Said the taller man in a voice that one might have used when trying to calm a wild animal.

Lightning wasn't intimidated in the least by the two pistols leveled at her chest. She had been shot at countless times before. She'd managed to deal with it just fine even before becoming a l'Cie. With her abilities as they were now only sustained concentrated fire could really hope to hurt her.

"This is your only warning," she said in a hard voice, "put your weapons away and we all walk away. Otherwise I'm going to have to put you down."

"That's not f*cking going to happen!" shouted the shorter man, "put the sword down right now, or we'll f*cking kill you where you stand. You got that? Do it right now!"

There was no way Lightning was going to allow herself to be taken in and disarmed by some unknown force. She had been stupid to just walk around in the middle of the street like that. She would knock these two out – there was no real need to kill them – and take to the rooftops where hopefully she would be harder to track.

The tall man was closer, so she rushed him. She took a curving path to him out of his line of fire in case he managed to discharge his weapon before she got to him. The soldier need not have bothered. Before the first man even registered that she had moved she was next to him, swinging hard at his head with the flat side of her blade.

When the blade connected, Lightning's eyes widened in shock. Instead of knocking him out, she felt as the flat side of her blade shattered the man's skull. The blow tore the man's head from his shoulders almost ripped it completely off. The blow had hit him so hard that he was killed instantly, his head completely destroyed.

Lightning froze, a look of horror on her face. She had not meant to kill the man, just knock him out. Lightning had killed many PsyCom soldiers, she was sure of it, but never when she could avoid it. A blow of the strength she had delivered would only be enough to knock someone senseless. This man's head had collapsed like an overripe grape. Lightning looked at the corpse at her feet in horror and confusion.

"Wa.. Wally!" she heard the other man yell. Her frozen surprise caused her to get shot.

The remaining man pulled the trigger and the bullet took Lightning on her right arm. She grimaced at the pain but was already moving before the sound of the first shot died down. The l'Cie ran around the car while keeping low, the other man making a futile attempt to track her with his gun as she moved much faster than he had ever seen. He got off one more shot that went wide before the woman used her left fist to hit him across the jaw.

Lightning pulled her punch to something far less powerful than she would use on a grown man. To a normal person she was used to it would not have been much more debilitating than a slap. With this man, Lightning felt the blow shatter his jaw like so much glass. His head whipped around so violently Lightning had to wonder if she had broken his neck with that blow. The man collapsed in a heap like a puppet with his strings suddenly cut. Lightning was dumbfounded as to why these men were seemingly more fragile than porcelain. What in in the hell was going in?

Still, Lightning was a trained soldier and part of that training was keeping the mission and survival at the forefront at all times. Everything else could wait. Spotting an alley across the street she ran to it, hoping to find a way onto a roof and away from the two soldiers, private security, whatever they were before more came looking for them.

This was not turning out to be a good day for Lightning Faron.

0000000

The GPS on the Batmobile indicated that he was less than two blocks from where the dimensional disturbance had taken place when he saw the first confirmation that this temporal disturbance was bad news. He spotted a police car and two officers lying unmoving on the ground. Batman stopped the Batmobile and quickly got out to investigate.

"Oracle," he said in to his communicator, "I need an ambulance at my position. Two police officers down."

"Copy that, Batman." Oracle replied.

Batman bent down to examine the first man. He was breathing, at least. But his lower jaw was an unrecognizable mass of flesh. Whatever had hit him had not left much of anything worth calling a jaw intact. Thankfully the man was unconscious. Batman moved him into a position where the man would not choke on the blood from his own bleeding mouth, being careful not to aggravate any potential neck injuries. Then he walked around the car to look at the second man.

His whole head was essentially gone. There was no need to check if he was still alive. Batman moved closer to examine the mess that had once been somebody's head. From what Batman could tell it had been one blow. Blunt object to the side of the head. No normal human could have the strength to do this. He wasn't even sure someone on the drug venom would be strong enough to do this to a human head in a single blow. Certainly it was meta-human level strength, whatever had done this.

Batman cursed inwardly. Whatever had come through the dimensional disturbance had already claimed its first victim, maybe even its second if the other officer doesn't survive. But why was one man's head pulverized and the other left with just a shattered jaw? Were there two creatures? Something about this didn't fit.

"Batman, ambulance ETA two minutes." Said Oracle on his headpiece.

"Copy that." Replied Batman.

He took a moment to collect some samples from the scene. There was nothing more he could do for the men, and the ambulance would be here any minute. He needed to get going and find whatever did this. Batman got into the Batmobile and drove off towards where the disturbance had occurred. Maybe he could pick up the trail there.

Batman arrived in the alley, the high tech HUD in his cowl showing him where the disturbance had occurred with an error margin of only a few centimeters. There was nothing outwardly remarkable about the spot. The disturbance had occurred a couple of meters above a filthy puddle next to a dumpster. Pulling a few empty vials out of his utility belt, Batman began gathering samples for later analysis in the Batcave. His night vision, infra-red and other types of vision that covered the electromagnetic spectrum allowed Batman to find things and collect samples that otherwise would be invisible to the naked eye. When Batman was satisfied that he had collected all that he could, his communicator sprang to life.

"Batman!" said Oracle with an edge of panic in her voice, "multiple dimensional disturbances all over the art deco district! Over thirty of them! All of them larger than the last!"

Batman swore. He hated it when he was right.

A dimensional disturbance could never, ever be good news.