Snow paces, footsteps heavy on the ship's metal floor. Why are they still here? Lighting and Hope and Sazh and Vanille and their Focus are outside, why are they still here? He's long since been persuaded of the Cavalry's right (if twelve hours counts as long, but still) why are they here?
"Good news," and she appears suddenly, her grin wild and feral and completely unlike anything else he's ever seen. "We're being sent out."
"Great! Let's get out of here," he grins too, elated. They're pretty similar that way—neither of them like being cooped up when there's fighting to be done and people to save.
Fang places a hand on his arm—but refuses to touch the L'Cie mark, he notices—and laughs. "You're gonna love this."
"What are we doing?" he asks, because he's never really liked the whole suspense thing. Action's always been his genre.
"Our pals at PSICOM are searching your pretty little city for signs of an invasion from Gran Pulse," Fang's mouth curls into a smirk and her eyes glint and sometimes, he wonders if she's real because she certainly doesn't look like anyone he's ever met before. "Once they're done? Yaag Rosch has given orders to burn it to the ground. If Bodhum burns, Snow, the Calvary's got no place to put the Purge survivors."
Snow blinks once, then again and again, and grins. "NORA!" he whoops because it has to be them, there's no way it isn't.
"You ready?" she asks, cocking a perfect eyebrow. At his nod, her smirk goes crooked. "Let's cause some havoc."
Soldiers surround him and he can't find Fang. Well, her loss. He'll just have to pick up her slack. Snow gives a big grin and slams a man into a building. The man doesn't stand up again.
His streets are filled with armored soldiers; guns shine darkly and it's out of place in his small, tourist-trap town.
"Pulse L'Cie!" they yell, and for people supposedly trained to fight threats from Pulse—Gran Pulse?—they sure sound scared.
Good. Snow sends one man flying backwards and he twirls and punches another person down. Now, he's never liked killing people but this—this is different. This is for the people of Bodhum, this is for the pale-eyed woman and her son, this is for NORA, and, most importantly, this is for Serah.
He kills another two soldiers and whirls around to get a third.
A familiar red spear goes whizzing past his head, almost close enough to shave his stubble—that's getting way too close to becoming an actual beard, he'll have to ask Cid for a razor when they get back. Quickly, he whips around and sees the spear embedded in the chest of a man behind him.
"A little late, aren't you?" he asks with a crooked grin as he lands a powerful kick in the stomach of a soldier trying to shoot him.
"What have you been doing?" she scoffs, zipping past him to reclaim her spear. "I've already killed my half. Maybe you are dead weight."
Her face and hands and arms and legs and, well, all of her, really, are smeared with blood. Somehow, though, it's not a bad look on her. This way she seems more—real, less... exotic. Snow swivels to smash his fist into the face of a woman about to shoot Fang. "Dead weight?" he asks with a laugh while the woman falls.
"Just keep talking. I could have taken care of this myself but you looked bored as I was."
He has a theory that there's more to it, but he keeps it to himself. He's been on the receiving end of her ire and he already has someone to knock him around and he doesn't need another one, especially not one who's—well—Fang.
Between the two of them, the streets are quickly cleared. PSICOM wasn't expecting resistance, especially not from NORA. Or, well, Pulse L'Cie.
With a smirk that dares him to challenge her, Fang runs the final soldier through with her spear. He grins—once again, his home is safe. He'll have to remember to ask Fang to be a part of NORA once they save Cocoon. She'd be a nice addition.
Even now, ships full of Calvary troops land and Snow grins—mission success. "We did it, Fang! We're heroes!"
With a wry smile, she just puts a hand on her hip and shakes her head.
"Come on, Fang, high five!" he holds his hand up.
Blandly, she looks at it and raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"High five!" he pauses and then scratches his head with the hand he'd been holding up. "You... don't do that on Pulse, do you?"
"Guess not," she shrugs and lets her hands dangle down.
Now her expression is cold and distant, the blood drying rapidly. "Here, I'll show you," he says with a smile.
Her eyes widen and surprise fleeting and fragile flits across her face. Snow blinks—she looks young and scared now, like Serah had, when she'd become a L'Cie. He swallows and holds up his hand again. Unconvinced, she watches it and him. "Now what?" she asks, attempting to sound bored, but underneath, he thinks he can hear curiosity.
He gives a crooked grin. "It's easy," he tells her, "Just slap my hand."
Raising an eyebrow—like she thinks he's either stupid or mad—she does and he's pretty sure he can feel and hear every bone in both their hands breaking. He winces and grits his teeth and she glares at him as though he's just betrayed her utterly.
"Not so hard," he manages and then takes a breath.
Fang turns her back on him, looking back at the ship. "Let's go," she says, harsh, and he isn't sure if she's ticked at him or herself.
Undaunted, he moves to block her view. "Hold your hand up," he says, with a kinder sort of smile.
For someone without a memory who's woken up in a place that's completely different from her home, she's doing a pretty good job of pretending she knows what she's doing. But he knows better-it's a lot like how he was when he first got to Bodhum. Like how he was before he met Serah.
She narrows her eyes and for a second, he thinks she'll shove him away and leave. Instead, she sighs and shakes her head. And then—amazingly—she holds up her hand, still smeared with blood.
Slowly—because if he moves too fast, he'll probably end up with a blood-soaked spear for a spine—he gives her a high five. Even through his gloves, he thinks he can feel her callouses, but maybe that's just him being sentimental. It's happened before. Fang blinks and then her face contorts. "That's it?"
"That's it," he says with a laugh, pulling his hand away from hers.
"I get it," she says with a grin. "Let me show you how to do it... Gran Pulse style."
Fran curls her hand into a fist and he's pretty sure he's about to see stars but she just holds her arm at an angle in front of her. "You do it."
He mimics her, frowning. Lightly, she taps their forearms together.
They grin. Her phone beeps and she tears her gaze away and answers it. Snow, meanwhile, looks at his hand and arm in bemusement. She's gotten blood on him.
"C'mon," she says after she disconnects. "We're off to a place called Palumpolum."