Hellooooo everyone. IridiumRing92 here. The reason for this fanfic is that I'm currently playing Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XIII at the same time! What's that? You figured that out? Oooohhh...

Anyway, yeah, I realize this is a weird combination,... Let's just say I'm open to suggestions. Go ahead and put a review out there telling me what you think if you are so inclined!...

Chapter One

Rendezvous With Death

It was one of those mornings on which the mirror betrayed Lightning. She looked at it and then away from it again and again, as though the image would change before her eyes and reveal that she had been imagining things. But the image was the same every time.

She hated waking up to see the l'Cie brand standing out against her pale skin.

At least if she zipped her military jacket up to her throat, no one would be able to see it. Not her sister Serah, not anyone—least of all Lightning herself.

l'Cie. l'Cie. She was a l'Cie.

Lightning turned away from the mirror, dragging a hand through her pink hair. The chorus that was running through her head on repeat—l'Cie, l'Cie, l'Cie—was driving her crazy. She had to focus. She had to go to work.

Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket, and she flipped it out just long enough to check the caller ID. Serah Farron, it read. Lightning slid the phone back into her pocket, ignoring the incessant vibrating. She wasn't going to answer her phone. Not now, maybe not ever. Maybe someday someone would find her, turned to crystal in the middle of nowhere, with a cell phone dropped on the ground beside her. They'd pick up the phone and look at all the missed calls, and then they'd look her in her icy blue eyes and hear her screaming, Answer it, answer it, because I never did.

Lightning shook away the image and stormed out of the room, going to the door of her apartment. Her boots sat right in front of the entrance, and she swiped them from the floor, shoving them onto her feet almost violently. Her cell phone had finally stopped vibrating, but that didn't lighten Lightning's mood at all. She knew it would probably start up again in a minute or two.

She just had to get to work, and then she'd be able to pass off not answering her sister's calls. She'd have a valid excuse, which she definitely needed. If her sister found out she wasn't answering just for the sake of not answering—she'd know something was wrong.

On the street below, she hailed a taxi, shoving other people aside despite their shouts back at her. She slid into the car, handing the driver her money and telling him the address of the place she wanted to go. She was still with the Guardian Corps—had to report to Lieutenant Amodar. Being late wasn't going to help her case.

Her phone went off again during the drive, but this time it only vibrated once. Lightning looked at it to find that there was only a voice mail from her sister Serah this time. This time she flipped open the phone and held it to her ear. Her sister's voice came through the speakers.

"Hey, Lightning… It's me. I, um, just called to ask how you were doing. I haven't heard from you in a while. I hope you're okay. Anyway, um… I'll see you soon. Bye." The voice mail ended.

Lightning snapped the phone shut and rolled her eyes. Either her sister had ulterior motives for calling her, or she knew something was going on with Lightning already.

Her seemingly sweet, innocent younger sister sometimes frustrated her to no end.

The taxi driver stopped and called back to Lightning to tell her they had arrived. She thanked him, if a little offhandedly, and stepped out onto the pavement, listening to the rush of air as the taxi sped away. The gate to her building wasn't too far off.

But as she approached it, she noticed that a shadow had formed in the sky. People were glancing up, pointing into the sky, some screaming and running. Lightning slowly raised her head so that she could see what was going on. Her jaw dropped when she saw what it was.

There was a huge fal'Cie flying through the sky, spinning and diving with the wind. It moved swiftly through the air and then crashed straight into the building Lightning had been heading toward, sending debris flying everywhere. Someone in the crowd screamed.

The fal'Cie turned around 180 degrees and smashed into the building again, taking out a chunk of the ceiling. Almost immediately after, the military's defense system activated, sending out mechs toward the gate. A flying mech with a tail flew right over the gate, directly under and past the fal'Cie, and started aiming at the crowd. Lightning glanced between it and the people in the crowd, who were running in all directions. She realized she was about the only person standing still. She had to do something.

Lightning drew her gunblade, pointing it at the warmech. She was loath to destroy technology that was useful to the military, but, she thought, if they knew the truth about her and the l'Cie brand on her chest, they would consider her an enemy anyway. The mech's stare—if you could call it that—turned toward her, and she was forced to jump out of the way as it shot a beam of light across the ground.

She rolled to her feet and ran straight for the mech. As soon as she was close enough she started slashing at it with her gunblade, trying to do all the damage she could to stop it from attacking the crowd ahead of her. Sirens blared all around her, probably alerting the military personnel on the inside of the building of what was going on outside.

Guards dashed up to the gate, shouting at people to calm down. She heard one of them shout her name and looked up. That was when her opponent reached out a hand made of metal and swatted her away. Lightning landed on her back at least a hundred feet from where she had stood, the wind knocked out of her. She barely heard her gunblade skittering away on the pavement in the distance.

As she was pushing herself up and the machine was advancing on her, she heard someone shout from her other side. She glanced one way and saw a figure running at the mech, holding what looked like a giant scythe. He was wearing an all-black outfit: a black hoodie, tight black pants, and black boots. He looked kind of like an assassin.

And he had pink hair.

"Get back!" he shouted at the machine, flying at it with his giant scythe. He managed to slice one of its metal claws clean off. The appendage clattered to the pavement, sparks still shooting from the severed electrical cables inside.

"Sir!" the military guards were screaming as one of them scrambled to open the gate. "Please calm down! Sir! What are you doing?!"

Lightning took the opportunity to push herself up from the ground and go after her weapon. But no sooner had she moved than the mech's sights swiveled to her again and it started to aim. She dived into a somersault, reclaimed her weapon, and dodged the machine's fire, taking her place next to the pink-haired man. They looked at each other and nodded before taking on a dual assault strategy. Each of them took a side and started to launch their attacks.

Two things happened at once.

The gate opened behind the military warmech, and soldiers swarmed out, surrounding the area—the bystanders cowering in corners, the machine, the two fighters, everything.

And the machine exploded.

Lightning and the assassin both launched an attack on the thing's heart, and it collapsed, its mechanical parts catching fire and then blowing up and out with a force enough to knock most of the soldiers, including Lightning, off their feet. When the noise and the force had subsided, the air was full of smoke and the area around them was full of debris. Coughing, Lightning stood up and glanced around. The man in black did the same. When he saw her, he held out his hand.

"Pleased to meet you," he said with a sardonic grin. "Your name?"

She eyed his hand suspiciously, as if it was a ticking time bomb. "Lightning." Still she seemed to decide that he was at least somewhat trustworthy, because she reached out and shook his outstretched hand once. "And you are?"

The guards around them were standing up and aiming their guns at the two fighters, shouting things about how they were under arrest for attacking military property. A shadow passed over them as the fal'Cie flew overhead again. The pink-haired man cast a passing glance at all of this before he looked back at her.

And then he said simply, "Marluxia."