Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIII-2 does not belong to me.
AN: I don't know how exactly I feel about Alyssa, but her character is fascinating to write about. I hope to write more.
Enigma Codex
"…In the end, one timeline is chosen, and that becomes the true history."
Alyssa Zaidelle first hears the phrase "for the greater good" from the mouth of a PSICOM soldier. She is fourteen and Nena clings to her side as they are herded back by the men and women in uniform. "For the greater good of the people of Cocoon," the words repeat themselves from mouths as the people of Bodhum begin to cry out in panic.
"But we are the people of Cocoon!" Someone shouts back frantically, and Alyssa is scared. She doesn't want to die and she doesn't want Nena to die and she wants her parents and she is only fourteen and she has her whole life ahead of her and this is not fair—
Later, when her and Nena find themselves separated at Hanging Edge, Alyssa experiences a few brief moments of hope – she cradles a heavy machine in her hands that she doesn't know how to use, hiding behind bent metal and stone. Her respite, however, is over before it ever truly started and suddenly there comes the sound of stone crumbling right above her, and the screams of fellow Purgees follow, and before she knows it she can't—
Her last thought, with her last bitter breath,
"This is all for the greater good."
.
.
What triggers the nightmares, several years After the Fall, is a boy whose name she later learns to be Hope Estheim.
She is a brand new Academy recruit, planning to weave her way up the ladder through any means necessary. Alyssa Zaidelle is nothing if not ambitious, and the Academy seems promising – her father having perished in an unsightly accident during one of his many travels shortly before, and her mother dead from the chaos that took place even earlier.
She is passing by some classrooms in the actual academy part of the building, looking forward to exploring the cafeteria menus, when a boy with silver hair catches her attention as he says "Yes, but if you consider the greater good, then—"
the greater good
the greater good
The words rattle around in her skull and she grimaces through a fierce headache for the rest of the day. That night when she falls asleep she dreams of suffocating under rocks and dust, her body crushed by unbearable weight and rage—
—Alyssa wakes up screaming and crying, feeling as if the air has been absent from her lungs for the past four years.
.
.
She has always known that the human memory is a tricky thing, easily manipulated by subconscious forces. But how does that explain that she is alive and Nena is dead, and she dreams for nights on end of her death at Hanging Edge?
.
.
Nena Stein, the gravestone reads. In her dreams, Alyssa continues to stand before it for what seems like eternity.
Alyssa Zaidelle.
Alyssa Zaidelle.
.
.
The pieces fit all too well together and now Alyssa can barely even sleep at night, for that is the depth of her fear and the growing hate at the two trying to fix the timeline. But she has always been a good liar and so no one is the wiser, except the one man who appears regularly in her dreams (Caius, she learns) and once, in an artificial sleep, offers her the means to continue her survival. She takes it without hesitation.
"For the greater good," the Director had told her before they entered the capsule, and after, a world three hundred and eighty seven years into their future. "It is what we must do for the sake of all the people – for the sake of the future."
What use, Alyssa thinks to herself as she feels her heartbeat slowing down and the familiar beginnings of sleep, is the greater good to me, if I am not around to enjoy it?
.
.
In all the timelines never visited, never explored, and all eventually erased – Alyssa has never told the man in her dreams "No".