Chapter One: The Hanging Edge
Prologue
Cocoon-a utopia in the sky.
Its inhabitants believed their world was a
paradise. Under the sanctum's rule, Cocoon
had long known peace and prosperity.
Their tranquility was shattered with the
discovery of one hostile fal'Cie
The moment that fal'Cie from Pulse-the
feared and detested lowerworld-awoke
from it's slumber, peace on Cocoon came
to an end.
fal'Cie curse humans, turning them into
magic-wielding servants.
They become l'Cie-chosen of the fal'Cie.
Those branded with the mark of a l'Cie carry
the burden of either fulfilling their Focus or
facing a fate harsher than death itself.
A prayer for redemption.
A wish to protect the world.
A promise to challenge destiny.
After thirteen days of fates intertwined,
the battle begins.
The thirteen days after we awoke were the beginning of the end.
Final Fantasy XIII
Part One:Defiers of Fate
Lightning stared at the shackles binding her hands to the hooded purge robes she was wearing as she waited for the purge train to reach it's destination at lake Bresha. She went over the plan she had been forming since the day before again in her head. Every detail had to be in place. Her timing had to be perfect. If she were off even by a few seconds, everything she had worked for to get her this far would be for nothing.
A PSICOM guard entered the room with his gun at the ready and laser pointer on. His uniform consisted of the standard military armor with a gas mask and yellow glowing eye sockets giving him the appearance of an intimidating scuba diver. He pointed his gun at the deportees to make sure they didn't do anything that could jeopardize the task at hand as the train entered the tunnel. Everything was going according to plan.
"You serious?" whispered the man named Sazh sitting next to Lightning.
"Be quiet." she snapped in reply as the guard came close.
Sazh stole a look at the guard and smirked. "Hmm, best of luck." he whispered as the guard walked past. It was almost time. Any second now...
The train lurched forward as it crashed through a security force field, knocking the guard off balance. Lightning took this moment to strike. Using the momentum from the crash she ran towards the guard before he had time to regain his balance. She leaped over the guard and hooked her shackles under the guard's neck, making him drop the transmitter controlling the shackles. She changed her velocity as to make sure she snapped the guards neck and crushed the transmitter. The shackles from the deportees came off as the signal died.
"She did it!" exclaimed Sazh as he looked at his newly freed hands. People began to run as a pair of guards entered the room to check on the commotion.
"Hands high!"
"Freeze!"
The guards began to fire into the crowd aiming towards Lightning. She took advantage of the gunfire, performing a front flip causing the bullets to shred the purge robes she was wearing allowing the guards to get a good look at the one who was causing all the trouble. She was a young woman with long light pink hair, with the bangs swept to the right of her forehead and the rest of her hair curling over the front on the other side.
She wore the standard Guardian Corps uniform which consisted of a white sleeveless vest that reached past her waist and had a raised collar that was fastened under her bust with a belt and some buckles leaving the bottom and top of the vest unfastened. On the vest was a large buckled pocket that hung around the waist area. Under the vest was a brownish red sleeveless turtleneck with a zipper that went all the way up to her throat. On her left shoulder was a small metallic pauldron with two glowing yellow stripes that identified her as a lieutenant in the Guardian Corps. On the other shoulder, a long red scarf was fastened giving it the appearance of a single shoulder cape. She also wore a brown leather skirt fastened to her waist with a belt. Strapped to her left thigh was a red leather cargo pouch with a strap going around her waist. She also wore a pair of steel-soled leather boots with the tongues exposed that came up just below her knees. And to finish the look of there was an empty case fastened that hung off the back of her belt that was open at one end and looked like it held a weapon before Lightning had boarded the purge train. She had a determined look on her face that gave her the air of a very intimidating woman.
Lightning leaped at the men ducking and bringing her foot up in a roundhouse sweep towards their faces before resuming a ready pose. Another PSICOM guard rushed in and aimed his gun. Before he could even pull the trigger Lightning disarmed him and knocked out all in one movement. Grabbing the soldier's gun she ran down the hallway towards another set of doors hiding next to them. As they opened she opened fire on a soldier who had taken cover behind some chairs.
Suddenly the soldier leaped from behind his hiding place and charged at Lightning, firing his gun, running directly into a roundhouse kick from Lightning's boot and shot down a soldier who had leaped out of hiding. To easy, "Hmm"she smirked and continued down the train.
Meanwhile, Sazh had shed his robes and was helping the purgees regroup. He was a middle aged man with dark skin and an afro. He wore an olive green aviator's (coat from his job as a transportation pilot for children) over a pair of khaki trousers a white button down shirt over a black T-shirt, and a pair of black leather buckled engineer boots, with fingerless gloves. Strapped to his thighs was a pair of holsters holding the standard Vega 42 pistols, which were capable of connecting into a shotgun should the situation require it.
"You all right?" he asked a boy who was hiding behind some boy looked up at Sazh in terror. "I'm not a L'cie" he reasured the boy. At this moment a small chocobo chick popped out of Sazh's hair and let out a cheep of encouragement. At this the boy smiled and got up.
Further ahead, Lightning found herself surrounded in the weapons bay. Snapping her fingers at her waist she activated the AMP Grav-Con Unit mana drive embedded in her fingertips. AMPs were issued to all soldiers in the Guardian Corps and PSICOM. It granted the user abilites that were almost like magic. Lightning's Grav-Con Unit allowed her to defy gravity letting her leap higher than any normal human, and fall slower. As she began to glow with electricity, she leaped back twisting her body and outreaching her hand, pinned a PSICOM to the wall releasing a small burst of energy. She launched off the wall, drop kicking another PSICOM and firing on the soldiers. Flipping herself up to the ceiling, she put another soldier down. Things were going exactly as planned.
Sazh came into the room with a gun leading a group of rebel deportees. "So far so good." he reported to Lightning. She pulled her Blazefire Saber-A sword that reverted to gun form and was only issued to highly trained soldiers. It had been confiscated upon her boarding the Purge train.
"They all want to fight." Sazh continued indicating the armed purgees behind him while eyeing Lightning's gunblade.
"Good for them" she muttered as she readied her gunblade. She stuck her head outside as the purge train reached Lake Bresha. Outside was chaos. What had once gone from a populous civilization to a desolate wasteland was now a war zone. Battle airships and militarized wyverns called Garuda interceptors were picking off purge survivors from the other previous train that had apparently crashed. Some survivors had managed to get a hold of some weapons and were fighting back, but PSICOM's military was pushing them back. Ships were crashing into nearby buildings and fires were raging all over the lake. This wasn't a purge. This was a massacre.
"Give me that!" Lightning ordered snatching one of the bazookas that Sazh had been carrying on his back. She locked onto a pair of interceptors that were closing in on them. She fired and the wyverns easily veered away from the incoming missile. She fired again and missed. The one of the garudas charged a bolt of electricity and fired at the tracks. The surge of energy raced up the tracks and caught up with the train and derailing the back cars from from the tracks and sending it crashing.
Meanwhile things were getting worse for the purge rebels. PSICOM had activated their AMP summon portals. Pantherons burst through, which looked like a cross between a wolf sized canine and cyborg. Through another burst a beta behemoth- a huge canine-esque beast in PSICOM armor. It had long flowing ears and on its head was a horn like crest. It reared up on its hind legs, pulling the crest out of its head creating a sword. It let out a ground shaking roar that caused several rebels to pull away in fear as it swung its sword at the nearest deportees.
Out of the sky flew a huge white scorpion looking machine with a row of four spin saw blades on each arm. It swooped down on the train Lightning was on and latched itself onto the top. She recognized it as a manasvin warmech, used in military assaults. This was not looking good. The warmech hacked at the train using its tail, tearing a hole in the train sending Lightning and the other purge rebels flying."Run!"Sazh urged Lightning. No she thought. Not when I'm this close. She would not run away. She charged towards the tear in the roof and leaped out. "I meant away!" Sazh yelled.
Part Two: Fields of War
He followed after her and crawled up through the hole. When he looked up Lighting had reverted her blazefire to sword mode and had it pointed at the warmech. She pulled herself into a ready stance with her blade raised just below her chin. She eyed the warmech, watching for its next move. It leaped into the air as if to try and intimidate her. The train shook as it came back down knocking Sazh over. "Hey, hey, hey!," he shouted at it, "lets be rational now!"
The warmech swung it's spin-saw arm towards the pair. Lightning performed a backflip away from the arm, while Sazh managed to narrowly escape being shredded to bits. "They're sending in the big guns now." he said scrambling to his feet. "What do we do?" he asked lightning.
"Watch and learn." she replied. The manasvin warmech pulled backed it's arm and the blades began to spin and crackle with electricity. Lightning readied herself. With that the machine brought it's arm down and the saws spun towards Lightning. She leaped out of range of the arm, and began to charge at it, and began slashing at weak points in it's armor as Sazh covered her with his pistols. She ducked out of the way of another arm and began to slash at the warmech. Thankfully the blazefire saber was designed to cut through metal in the case of Pulse's war machines.
After a few leaps and slashes the machine reared up and leaped backwards. It put it's arms on either side of the train and began to violently shake it. "Fall back!" Lightning yelled to Sazh and began to run up the train away from the warmech until they where the train's cars weren't shaking so hard. They turned around and looked at the warmech.
Sazh laughed. "Not so tough now, huh?" he taunted. As if in response, a pair of hatches opened in the back of the manasvin warmech's upper arms and began to spew blue fire. The train began to shake more violently with the added boost from the flames.
Sazh's jaw dropped."Hey, that wasn't like a challenge now, all right?" he pleaded. And suddenly the force of the shaking began to knock the cars off the tracks.
"Time to go!" Sazh yelled as he and Lightning began to run up the train, however the shaking caught up with them. Lightning slid to a stop as the train began to tilt sideways. Using her momentum she pushed herself up the side of the train and swung herself up with one of the rails onto the side of the train that was facing up and slid down the train like a skateboard before somersaulting down to a detached train car.
Meanwhile Sazh was coming down in his own way running down the side of the train trying to keep ahead of the collapsing cars. "I'm coming!" he called to Lightning. The train was beginning to catch up.
"Jump!" Lightning shouted.
Sazh obeyed and jumped off the end of the tracks. He landed on his hands and knees and caught his breath. The chocobo that was riding in his hair landed and struck a pose as if it had performed an Olympic feat.
"Heads up." Lightning warned Sazh as he got to his feet. She readied her gunblade. "This thing won't give up!" Sazh complained as the warmech crashed down to pursue them. The armor on its head began to split down the middle, revealing a very dangerous looking cannon.
"Take cover!" Lightning warned ducking behind some rubble. At this, a white hot beam of energy shot from the cannon. Sazh was barely able to avoid it before getting burned. As it was closing it's head, Lightning took advantage and charged, getting in a slash at it's internal system before the head fully closed.
The warmech raised it's tail and fired a short but fast burst of energy that sent Lightning stumbling back a few feet. Thankfully the shot had just grazed her but, it still hurt. The warmech charged it's arm for another electric attack. Suddenly there were two loud bangs, and the spinsaws on the arm stopped spinning and exploded. Lightning looked behind her towards the source of the bang. Sazh's pistols were still raised, the barrels smoking. His bullets had gotten jammed in the saws. She didn't know if he was that good or if it was just a lucky shot, but he may come in more use than she thought.
"Cover me." She ordered as she charged at the warmech as Sazh began shooting again. She was able to dodge another short burst of energy and slid under the warmech's head thrusting her blazefire saber into the area where it's head connected to it's body. She quickly dodged out of the way as the manasvin warmech began to short circuit. It stepped backwards bringing it closer to the edge. Then it's chest exploded, sending it toppling over the edge. Into the darkness. Lightning watched it fall. PSICOM was getting desperate if they were bringing in warmechs.
Sazh sat down exhausted. "Oh goodness." He sighed. "Whew. We did it." He said smiling at Lightning. She walked over to the other side of the train and knelt down, peering over the edge. Warships flew over head firing at the purgees. Lighting got up and changed her gunblade to gun form, and put it in the holster hanging from her back below her waist. She turned and began to walk away.
"Aren't you supposed to protect civilians, soldier?" Sazh called to her. She stopped and turned her head towards him. "I mean you are sanctum, aren't you?" he said getting to his feet.
The Sanctum was Cocoon's central government, and maintained direct authority over the military making part of what he was asking partially correct. "What're you doing trying to stop the purge? Why don't you tell me that?" he continued.
Lightning turned to look at Sazh. "I was a soldier." she corrected. She walked toward the edge of the train and jumped down.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Sazh shouted after her. He sighed in exasperation. This woman was hard to keep up with. The chocobo chick flew out of Sazh's hair, and rested on his palm and proceeded to clean under it's wing. "Chocobo," he said to the little bird. "We just can't catch a break, can we?" The bird cheeped in response and flew into the air.
"Yea, that's a good question." He said as if he understood what the little was saying. "Oh well, better follow her." He said and began to climb down the overturned train. The chocobo chick returned to it's nest in his home. Soon it would be bigger than sazh and would have to find a new nest. "I'm getting to old for this." He complained as he climbed down the side.
"You sure we can get through here?" he asked catching up to Lightning, who ignored him. A battle airship crashed in front of them sending rubble flying everywhere and almost knocking Sazh back. She checked her datalog and studied the map looking for the fastest root. The datalog was issued to every soldier and could tell her almost anything and was designed to update should she run into a situation that her datalog couldn't yet comprehend. It could even provide a digital map of the surrounding area. She was still a ways off from her target. She had a long night ahead of her.
She continued forward with Sazh following close behind finding cover whenever a warship passed to close, taking out soldiers if it came to fighting. Eventually they came across a PSICOM soldier standing guard next to a summoning portal. She took cover behind a pile of rubble nearby and studied the scene in front of her. If that soldier summoned a behemoth, it would be very difficult getting through without getting seriously injured and she could not afford that. Behemoths were tough but if you manage to knock them back some, they would resort to standing on their hind legs and swinging their crest blades blindly. She prayed the soldier would summon something small, like a pantheron. They were fast, but easily staggered. Once they were staggered, they were easy to dispatch.
"Not wanting to get purged I get." Sazh whispered behind her as she watched the soldier. "But taking on trained soldiers?" he asked.
"Better to die than to get sent to Pulse. It's hell without the brimstone." she explained, eyes still on the soldier.
The PSICOM punched in a few buttons on the summoning portal's control panel on his wrist. Out of the portal two Pantheron hounds materialized. They sniffed the air and growled. Pantherons were blind but had an amazing sense of smell. It would only be a matter of time before they sniffed out Lightning and Sazh.
"Yeah, well hell's not sounding too bad." Sazh said eying the machine dogs. " 'Cause this place ain't exactly paradise."
"Domesticated peacekeepers. Nothing to worry about." Lighting reassured.
"Maybe not for a soldier girl, but-Hey!" Sazh started as Lightning rushed into view of the soldier, ending up following her instead of finishing what he was going to say.
Lightning leaped over the pantherons and brought her gunblade down on the soldier before he had the chance to aim at her. He went down in two swings of her gunblade. She turned to face the hounds and found them staying out of the way of Sazh's bullets she swung her gunblade in a sweeping circle knocking them down and finishing one with a shot from her blazefire while Sazh finished the other.
She continued on following her datalog's map. The destination on her map told her that she was making progress but still a ways away from her target. As she was walking she noticed Sazh had stopped. She looked behind and noticed he was looking sadly down on the platform below them. A group of rebels were firing helplessly on a behemoth. With a roar the behemoth charged the rebels, killing them under it's feet. "Murder," Sazh said sadly. "Cold blooded murder."
Lightning continued on. She didn't have time to worry about the affairs of others. They got themselves into that mess by trying to fight back. Now they were in the middle of a warzone, and that meant biological weapons weren't an exception. She rounded a makeshift barricade and came across a PSICOM guard obviously assigned to take care of any rebels that made it through the front lines. And he wasn't paying attention.
"Preemptive strike." she whispered to Sazh drawing her gunblade. She crept up on the unsuspecting guard. Suddenly a menacing growl came to Lightning's left. She looked in that direction to find a pantheron running towards her. The guard turned around and spotted the pair.
"Rebels!" he shouted excitedly. He chose the wrong rebel to take down.
"So much for the element of surprise." Sazh complained. This wasn't a stabbed the pantheron and left Sazh to finish it as she fired down the guard. He went down easily.
Sheathing her gunblade, Lightning continued down the walkway. In front of them the ground exploded as a missile struck, sending Sazh flying backwards and knocking Lightning off balance. She crossed her forearms over her face to protect it from the overwhelming heat. In front of them Rebels and soldiers fell screaming to their deaths below as the walkway collapsed below their feet from the force of the explosion. As the heat faded, Lightning lowered her arms to take in the damage in front of her. Where the walkway had been was a huge gap with most of the walkway destroyed. She threw her arm aside in frustration. She was so close, and now her path was ruined.
"Do we turn back?" Sazh panted, getting to his feet.
"There's no time." She said.
"Then what do you suggest we d-?"
"Quiet!" she snapped. She walked to the edge of the gap, and peered over. There was just enough energy in her graviton unit for herself. Sazh would have to take care of himself from this point on. She raised her hand slightly above her hip and snapped her finger. A burst of energy erupted where her fingers were and a wave of electricity spread over her body. And with that, she began to float off of the ground. Sazh saw what she was about to do and paniced.
"Hey!" he said running towards Lightning. She was his ticket out of this place, and he'd be damned if she just left him here. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her down. Lightning began to kick and squirm as she tried to release his grasp.
"Wait!" he pleaded, hanging on desperately. "No, no, don't leave me!" he placed a hand on his face and began to desperately push him off of her.
"Let go!" She shouted at him.
"Hell no, you're my only way out of here!" he said struggling to hold on.
She drove her knee into his gut and backhanded him, knocking him down. Lightning snapped her fingers. There was a spark of energy but no results. She tried again, and recieved the same results. Dammit! she thought. Her AMP was out of energy. Sazh was on the ground massaging his jaw when he looked up.
"Hey, that might get us across!" Sazh shouted behind her. "Right there!" he pointed. She looked where he was pointing, and saw a flying platform bridge coming towards them.
"Right?" he asked still on all fours.
Lightning looked down at him. Looks like she was stuck with him a little longer. "Looks that way." she said with a sigh. She continued on towards the bridge with Sazh following slowly behind leaving the wreckage behind them.
"Leave this to me." he said rushing ahead. Sazh was very good with piloting things due to his job as a pilot. A control panel rose from the ground and turned on. He scratched his head and studied the controls. "Seems to be in working order." he said. He punched in a few buttons and the platform lowered onto the platform bridge. Lightning leaped over the edge to find a PSICOM marauder with a few soldiers.
They were the elite members of PSICOM and they were ruthless in battle. She had seen a few of them in the military academy, and they were a force to be reckoned with. They wore heavy armor and carried a spiked mace looking baton around wherever they went. She had never seen what these were used for but knew they were more than they appeared. They were also given mana drives, which granted them almost magical abilities. Thankfully, this one didn't seem seem to be paying attention.
"This is not our lucky day." Sazh complained. It was one threat after the next. He looked at Lightning.
"He's a soldier too, right?" he asked. "Can't you like, pull some strings or something?" he inquired.
She ignored him. If it was that easy, they wouldn't have had to fight all those other soldiers. They didn't care anymore, so long as they got the job done. Guardian Corps to them was the same as a deportee. She continued toward the marauder and his guards. She would have to find out if her theory was correct. The marauder looked up from the control panel he was messing with and saw Lightning walking towards them. He walked towards her.
"Deportees, are we?" he asked cockily. He raised his mace baton horizontally in front of his face.
"Weapons down." he ordered. "I'd hate for this to turn ugly." he mused. Pushing a switch on the baton it elongated into a lethal looking spear. He swung it to his side, and continued towards Lightning.
"Uh, turn ugly?" Sazh asked Lightning.
She stepped in front of Sazh and drew her blazefire saber. So much for letting a Guardian Corps through. "He wants to kill us without a fight." She explained positioning herself into a ready stance. Sazh drew his pistols. He'd leave the PSICOM elite to Lightning while he focused on the soldiers.
"Time's up!" the marauder shouted and he moved with inhuman speed at Lightning, bringing his spear down. She ducked and rolled out of the way as the spear struck where she had been standing moments before. meanwhile Sazh was firing at the soldiers who had been left in the dust by their commander. Lightning swung her gunblade at the marauder, but he easily deflected it with his spear. He smacked her with the butt end of his spear sending her sprawling. He began to glow as he began to charge his mana drive. No you don't! Lightning reverted her gunblade to gun form, and fired with enough force to knock him down. She charged at him and began to slash at him. He was barely able to stay out of reach of the deadly single edged sword, ducking and blocking. He sent Lightning flying and jabbed at her with her spear. She attempted to leap out of range, but the spear revealed another trick. It could extend its head up to a foot. Lightning was barely able to block with her sword before the spear reached it's full length and retracted. She fell to the ground hopeless. The marauder charged his mana drive. This time it would be charged.
Sazh in the meantime had taken care of the guards and aiming his pistols at the commander, fired. The bullets ricocheted of the maruader's armor. He turned around to face Sazh and sent a fire ball in his direction. Sazh dodged just as the fireball exploded where he had been moments before. Lightning took advantage of the momentary distraction, and just as the PSICOM marauder turned around to finish off Lightning, she had plunged her gunblade through his armor and into his chest. Although she couldn't see his eyes, she knew there must be a look of shock as he fell to the ground dead. She sheathed her gunblade and walked with Sazh over to the control panel the commander had been typing on.
"So, soldier..." Sazh started, examining the control panel and turning to Lightning. "What's your angle?" he finished. She looked at him and then turned away.
He turned back to the control panel and slid his finger along the control panel and activated it. "What, is it classified military info." He asked as the panel hummed to life. She ignored him.
He turned to her "What's it matter?" he asked. " You quit, didn't you? You think I'm just gonna go out there and tell everybody your secret?"
"The Pulse fal'Cie." She said finally. Sazh stared at her wide eyed. She turned to him.
"My 'angle.' I'm after the fal'Cie." she explained.
The fal'Cie were supernatural ageless beings that looked like machines but were more that. They were responsible for the creation and maintenance of the land where humans lived, and indirectly governed their lives. They could be described as god machines with a crystal sustaining their life fal'Cie had it's own role in the well being of the worlds. They didn't die of old age but they could be killed. They possessed intense magical power beyond human comprehension. There were two kinds of fal'Cie. There were the Cocoon fal'Cie who created Cocoon and protected it's inhabitants. Cocoon was what could be called a floating continent. Below it lay the world Cocoon floated over-Pulse.
This is where the other fal'Cie lived. The very mention of a Pulse fal'Cie sends the citizens of Cocoon into fear. The Sanctum had spread tales of how Pulse and it's inhabitants were enemies of Cocoon and that the only safe place was on Cocoon. Pulse is described as a hellish place where no one but it's inhabitants could survive. Despite their differences, Pulse and Cocoon fal'Cie had one ability. They had the ability to brand a human being (with or without their will) with their respective symbol turning them into servants of the fal'Cie and granting them magical powers. These humans are called l'Cie. When branded l'Cie are given a task or focus to complete within time. If they fail they are transformed into grotesque monsters. If they succeed, they are turned into crystal put into an everlasting sleep. Cocoon l'Cie are regarded as heroes, while Pulse l'Cie are viewed as tainted and cursed.
About five centuries ago, there was a war with Pulse. Pulse's military had managed to crack the outer shell of Cocoon leaving a gaping hole revealing the inside of Cocoon. However Cocoon's fal'Cie stepped in and pushed the invaders back, ending the war. Ever since then, there has been an unwavering fear of another Pulsian invasion. The fal'Cie went to work repairing Cocoon using whatever bits of Pulse they could use. However the task was abandoned and the site of the war-Lake Bresha was closed off to the public. A few days ago, the Sanctum discovered the presence of a Pulse fal'Cie sleeping in one of the Pulse vestiges used to repair Cocoon in the city of Bodhum. All the citizens were evacuated and voted to be 'purged' or deported to Pulse along with the fal'Cie for fear of anyone being a Pulse l'Cie. It was for that reason that Lightning was after the pulse fal'Cie. And she had to reach it before it was destroyed or her mission would have been all for nothing.
Lightning walked past Sazh and pulled out the handle of a lever on the control panel and pushing it down it's z shaped latch. The platform shook as it hummed to life and began to move. "Still happy you tagged along?" She said sarcastically. Sazh looked down at the ground.
"Didn't have a choice." he whispered more to himself as Lightning walked away to check on the progress of the platform. He had his own reasons for following Lightning, and now he knew that although they had completely different reasons, they both had the same goal. And as the platform headed toward's their destination, he realized he would have to stick with her till the end.
