Chapter One: Ruined Earth
The landing had been rough, but not too dangerous. As far as Noel was aware, there hadn't been a single casualty among the crew and passengers, though he wasn't sure about the injured Hope. Emergency generator power kept the airship running, and the crash landing seemed to have jarred the creatures above into releasing control, although the circuits used for take off and control of the airship were completely fried.
"Everyone OK back there?" Sazh stretched as he checked on the group. After nodding, Noel unbuckled his seatbelt. "How's Hope?" he asked.
Sazh grimaced. "He's alright. He didn't nick the jugular, so he's resting in the sick bay now. Fang and Vanille are in the storage area, where it's safe. The workers down there tell me the crystals didn't budge during the landing."
Noel sighed in relief before he could stop himself. Good. They didn't need any more loss today.
"Hey. I know you're tired but I need you to help me check on those monsters on deck." Sazh reached into his belt and drew out a thick, sleek weapon, that fit perfectly in his palm. A second one was already slipped into his left hand. Two pistols. Seeing such futuristic weapons after the swords and bows he had become accustomed to was jarring.
"Alright," Noel replied simply, standing up with a groan. His entire body ached, new ripples of pain running through his body as he did so. He felt like he'd aged several decades in the last day alone. It was pretty tense in the airship. People were milling around, trying to get the control panels working. They at least seemed to have the heat working, because the airship remained comfortably warm. Not that he'd be able to experience that for much longer, going back out on deck.
Black clouds swirled over the sky, periodically letting loose lightning strikes. The lake they had landed in had turned black, like tar, bubbling and smoking ominously, no doubt infested with chaos. The ground was tinted with grey, cast by the chaos filled Bhunivelze above. Only the occasional piece of wildlife was visible on land. Had they been infected? Ripped from their home time? Killed? Noel didn't know.
The clockwork creatures were still there, planted in the airship's husk. The clock face they had burned into the airship was still there, but the flames themselves were out. Only charred black imprints with no trace of magic remained.
Sazh approached with his gun drawn, but didn't fire, probably because of the risk of the force field still being there. Instead he struck one of the implanted creatures with the barrel, and a grotesque cracking sound rang out, fissures running along its form like extensions of those already on the airship. Even as these ley lines ran along the monster, its form was blackening like charred paper, crumpling in on itself as splinters and fragments fell off its crumbling wind seemed to pick up as the beast disintegrated, and its fragments were carried away on the gusts.
"Were they suicide attackers?" asked Noel disbelievingly, walking over to the other one and prodding it with his shoe. The process that the other creature had undergone repeated itself, until only the clock face seared onto the airship left any reminder of its existence.
"I don't know. But I know if I ever see another one of those bastards, it'll be too soon," responded Sazh grimly. "Let's go inside. We need to plan out what we're doing from here."
Noel nodded, and followed the older man inside.
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Darkness surrounded him. Not the simple darkness of night, with cold mist hanging in the air. None of the bright lights Academia offered to those who walked in the night, as he so often had while considering theories and their worth.
Pure, unbroken darkness. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be here. His breath caught shallowly in his throat, and he choked and breathed in deeply as the taste of bile filled his mouth. He swallowed it, much as it repulsed him. He didn't have time to be sick. He needed to wake up. Escape this nightmare and get back to Noel and Sazh, Vanille and Fang.
"Hope."
He staggered back, the idea of something knowing his name in this darkness filling him with dread. But that voice, it was familiar. Where was it coming from? Thoughts of escaping from this nightmare gone, he wanted to run towards where he thought the voice was coming from. He put one foot in front of the other, taking a step, then another. Then another.
"Stop."
The voice was sharp. Laced with anger. Or was it concern? Regardless, it stopped him in his tracks. A wave of pain traveled up his chest and took hold of his throat. Emotion welled up inside him. Emotions he thought he had taken control of long ago. He felt like that fourteen year old child on Cocoon again before this voice.
"But...why?" His voice was barely a whisper; it had to be to stop this nascent emotion. "Why, Lightning? There has to be something I can do." He took another step forward, but before his foot hit the ground, pulled it back, looking away from the source of the voice as the sorrow became harder and harder to keep under control.
"Look at you. You've grown so much." The maternal voice he so rarely heard was in the voice, surrounding him from all sides. "But me...I haven't changed at all." Now the compassion gave way to bitterness, an emotion he was much more familiar with hearing from Lightning.
He opened his mouth to speak, but her voice cut him off. "Listen. I don't have much time. Keeping myself here...keeping Serah's will here within me. It's taking all my strength." Lightning's own voice had dropped to a whisper now, but this was from weakness, and not from emotion. "It's not over yet, Hope. It's not over."
"What do you mean?" Hope called out, but his voice came out as a croak, lost to the darkness. Yet she heard it anyway.
"Time has stopped, and chaos has flooded the world. But it still exists. It's still whole. Why is that?" Her voice was contemplative, and Hope knew that she knew the answer about as well as he did. "Etro...her death did not bring things to an end. She gave humans hearts. Pieces of herself. When she died, why didn't humanity die with her? Why were only parts of the world drawn into Valhalla? This is what you need to find out. And I don't know how."
At a loss for words, Hope tried to speak a few times, but nothing came out.
"I'm out of time, Hope. But you still have it. The world still has it. It's time for you to succeed where I have failed. To continue the work so many before you have lived and died to complete. This...is out of my hands now, and I don't know if I'll be able to help you again." Lightning's voice was growing fainter now, and the darkness was chipping away from his surroundings, light spilling into his world and surrounding him.
Did Lightning even know that Serah had died? That so much life had vanished from Pulse? "Wait, Lightning!" he called out uselessly, before the light enveloped him, his vision spinning and rotating like an overactive Nautilus ride.
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"Director Estheim. Director Estheim!" A female voice was calling out to him, A loud voice, not very welcome in its screechy attempts at response. Hope groaned, hoping against hope that the voice would go away.
"Oh thank God!" Instead, the voice got even screechier. "I'm so glad the doctors were able to patch you up! I have the notes we've compiled on the monsters that attacked us here!" Out of the corner of his eye, Hope saw a stack of papers landing on a bedside table.
He was in the infirmary, a crisp white set of rooms that matched the sheets, duvets and pillows in their crisp whiteness. A clear white liquid was being transferred into Hope's arm through a drip. There was a little pain in his throat and head, but nothing like what he had endured in his days as a L'cie.
"Oh no you don't." A tall woman made her way over to them with a death glare on her face. Her brown hair was tied back in a tight bun that made her fringe look like it was about to rip itself from the scalp, and she was dressed in prim white clothes that blended her into the background with frightening thoroughness. "Director Estheim needs to rest. He doesn't have time to be reading your..." she sniffed derisively. "Nonsense."
"No, it's fine." Hope sat up with some effort, and grabbed the stack of notes on the bedside. The blond intern smiled with delight as the doctor pursed her lips in disapproval.
"Very well, but no sharp movements. You'll rip your neck open again." She turned her back on Hope and the intern. "When the pain gets worse, call for a doctor or nurse. We'll refill your Fercylatride drip."
Once satisfied that Hope had listened to her, the doctor took her leave, and the intern followed shortly after with a girly, nervous smile directed at Hope, who returned a subdued one. The notes weren't exactly impressive, but since nothing of these creatures had ever shown up before, he didn't expect them to be up to much.
Their odd physiology was there, as well as the two abilities they had displayed so far: heated lasers and the ability to manipulate electrical devices. Shapeshifting was listed under "possible abilities." Since the extent of their molding was unknown, it was natural that this data was put forward only tentatively.
His head began to throb, but not enough that he needed painkillers. Casting the notes back onto the desk in a splayed heap, he threw himself back down onto the bed, putting his right hand over his head as he stared up at the near blinding golden light illuminating his bed. He had so much to think about. Lightning, these monsters, the more imminent problem of a world full of chaos, with time frozen in place. Where would he begin? How should he proceed. The pain in his head only got worse the more he thought about it, so he decided he would sleep some more; try in vain to put his restless mind at ease.
"Alright you white coated bastards!" A smashing sound followed by screaming from the infirmary staff sounded, and Hope, suddenly alert, craned his head to look for the familiar voice.
A tall woman drove her long, symbol inscribed lance into another glass cabinet, tearing the medicine bottles that lay within open, and sending a waterfall of multicolored pills and liquids cascading onto the floor. Hope's eyes widened. Could it be her? After all this time?
"I'll give you one more chance to answer me!" she yelled out to no one in particular. "Where the hell is Vanille?"
