The Twilight Zone: Fang
Fang knew she shouldn't leave the village so soon after an attack, but she couldn't bear to stay another minute. She had to hit something, or she'd go crazy. Those damn vipers! If only she could kill them all! Cocoon had struck again. She'd helped protect Oerba, but half a dozen other villages had been burnt to the ground.
After the battle, she'd stumbled into one of Oerba's makeshift hospitals. It wasn't for treatment. She was looking for Vanille. She found the red head surrounded by wounded and dying warriors. The clothes she wore were covered in blood. People were screaming and crying and praying and begging. The smell of blood and death hung over everything.
It was hell, and Vanille was right in the middle of it.
Vanille saw Fang and shoved her out of the hospital. They were busy enough as it was. Fang waited outside until Vanille was done with her shift. A few hours later, Vanille staggered out of the hospital and threw herself into Fang's arms. Weeks of pain and frustration poured out of her. Vanille sobbed as she told Fang about all the people she hadn't been able to save. They'd trusted her – all of them – and she'd failed them. They were dead because she hadn't been good enough.
Eventually, Vanille cried herself out and fell asleep in Fang's arms.
None of this was Vanille's fault.
It was all because of Cocoon.
Fang carried Vanille back to their house and tucked her into bed. The red head tossed and turned, her brows furrowed even in sleep. Whatever horrors she'd experienced, they refused to leave her alone. Fang's jaw clenched. She couldn't be here. She had to go somewhere before her anger slipped out of her control and she hurt someone.
A few of the other warriors tried to stop her, but she snarled and shoved her way out of the village. She strode into the long grass with her spear and killed the first animal that challenged her. Who cared if she didn't need it? She was burning inside. Her jaw clenched, and her hands tightened around the shaft of her spear. Something leapt at her from behind, and she turned to drive her spear up into its gut.
A feral snarl burst from her lips. The creature hissed and spat, and she wrenched her spear free. Blood poured form the wound. She brought the spear back down on the creature's head. It went still. The air was too thin. She couldn't breathe. Her heart pounded in her chest. She stumbled deeper into the long grass. Another animal came after her and then another. She killed them all.
She had no idea how long she flailed her way through the long grass. She barely even noticed all the blood splattered on her clothes and skin. It was only when it began to rain that she came back to her senses. She found herself standing over the corpse of another animal. She'd shoved her spear into its chest and twisted the weapon cruelly to kill it.
Fang dropped to her knees and pressed her head to the ground. Shame filled her. She'd been taught never to kill without reason. But instead she'd gone out and slaughtered anything that crossed her path because she was angry. That was no way for a warrior to behave. Slowly, she stood and turned her face up to the sky. The rain washed the blood off her face. At least some of the other animals would eat well tonight.
The rain grew heavier until her clothes were soaked through. She'd wandered quite far from the village. Her best option was to wait for the rain to stop. She ran for the closest tree. It was an enormous thing with densely layered branches. Some said it was haunted, and tonight… tonight was Halloween. She clenched her jaw. There were demons, all right, but they came from Cocoon, not some tree.
She got a fire started and huddled close to the tree where its leaf-laden branches would provide shelter from the rain. She kept her underwear on but hung her sari near the fire to dry. At least she wouldn't have to go hungry while she waited. She had dragged the last animal she'd killed over to the fire and prepared a few skewers of its meat to cook over the flames. As the scent of the cooking meat filled the air, she wished she'd brought some herbs and spices. But she hadn't exactly been in the right frame of mind when she left.
Her gaze drifted over her surroundings. She could not afford to drop her guard here. The weather made any further attack from Cocoon unlikely, but there were still plenty of animals around. A rustle came from the long grass nearby. She grabbed her spear and waited. There was almost thirty feet of open ground between the edge of the grass and her fire. That was more than enough time for her to identify the intruder and, if necessary, attack.
It was no beast.
A tall, cloaked figured stepped out of the long grass, a spear slung over one shoulder. From the way the figure walked, it was a woman. The cloak was covered in traditional Yun patterns, but it was made of a fabric she didn't recognise. A hood hid the woman's face, but Fang caught a glimpse of green eyes.
"Do you think I could share your fire?" The woman's voice was warm and somehow familiar. "It's raining pretty hard out here."
The woman had stopped just outside the protection offered by the tree's branches. Thrusting her spear into the ground, she opened her hands to show there was nothing in them. It was also a sign of trust. At this distance, Fang would have no trouble hitting her with her spear.
"Who are you?" Fang asked. She'd never met a viper that could speak her language, but there was always a first time. It would be exactly like Cocoon to resort to lies and tricks.
"Someone looking for a place to wait out the storm." The woman shrugged. "If it helps, I'm Yun. From the looks of it, so are you. There's not too many of us left. We should look out for each other."
"You're Yun?" Fang tightened her hold on her spear. "Prove it."
The woman put one hand on her spear. There was a blur of motion, and the weapon thudded into the tree trunk. Fang's eyes widened. The spear had passed close enough to cut a few strands of her hair.
The woman put one hand on her hip and laughed. "Ever seen anyone who wasn't Yun handle a spear like that?" Fang gave a slow shake of her head. "Does that mean I can come over there, or am I going to have to stand here and get wetter?"
"You're welcome to join me." Fang glanced back at the spear. It was buried more than foot into the tree. She needed to learn how to do that.
The woman yanked her spear out of the tree and then settled down on the opposite side of the fire. "Thanks. I don't mind a bit of frolicking in the rain, but this is a little too much rain." Her gaze flicked to the sari drying near the fire. There were still streaks of blood on it. "I'm guessing it was you I heard killing all those critters earlier. Something get on your nerves?"
Fang scowled. She still couldn't believe she'd lost control of her temper like that. "I shouldn't have done that. I wasn't killing them for food, or even sport. I was… angry."
"About what?" The woman reached over to adjust the skewers of meat near the fire. A second longer and one side of the meat would have started to burn. "You don't have to answer, but it looks like you could use someone to talk to. Trust me, I've seen a lot of things in my time. Talking often helps."
Fang looked into the fire. She didn't have a lot of people she could talk to. She respected the other warriors, and they respected her, but they weren't family. Vanille was the only family she had now, and she didn't want to burden her younger sister with anything else. Vanille had enough to worry about. This other woman was another Yun and a warrior. If anyone could understand, she could.
"Cocoon!" Fang spat. "All they bring is pain and death. They killed my family and Vanille's family, and they won't stop until they've killed the rest of us."
"Vanille?"
"My little sister." Fang dragged in a deep breath.
"You said they killed your family and hers. You had different families."
"That doesn't matter. We're family now."
"I understand." The woman's voice was almost gentle. "Believe me, I do." She tapped her spear on the ground. It was a fine weapon, exactly the kind that Fang wanted. "So, you hate Cocoon."
"Of course I do. Don't you? Think about everything they've done, all the people they've hurt."
"Let me ask you something." The woman leaned back and stared out into the rain. "If you could kill everyone on Cocoon, would you?"
"Yes!"
"Really?" The woman laughed, but it was a soft and sad. "You really would?"
"Yes." Fang snarled. "They deserve it for everything they've done."
"You think they're all vipers, don't you?" The woman sighed and then reached across to whack Fang over the back of the head. Fang growled and lunged forward. She was already one of the best warriors in Oerba. She wasn't about to let some stranger – Yun or not – hit her. With a speed that few could match, she threw half a dozen blows. Any one of them would have been enough to end a normal fight. Not a single one of them landed. The other woman dodged them with almost contemptuous ease. Then Fang was on the ground. The woman had kicked her feet out from under her. If that wasn't humiliating enough, the woman sat on her back.
"You're pretty slow." The woman patted Fang on the head. Fang tried to elbow her, but the other woman caught her arm. She was strong, even stronger than Fang. "Sloppy too."
"Slow?" Fang bucked, but the other woman refused to budge. "Sloppy?"
"Compared to whom I'm used to fighting? Yeah, you're damn slow and very damn sloppy." The woman pinched one of Fang's cheeks. "Now, I'm going to talk, and I want you to listen and think about what I'm saying. Understand?" Fang writhed and ended up eating dirt for her trouble. "Look, I can understand you hating Cocoon. For long, long time, I did too. A lot of them are jerks. But ask yourself: are all of them the same? Are they all like the ones that killed your family?"
"Get off me!" Fang strained for even an inch of leverage. Her opponent gave her nothing.
"Those soldiers have families, Fang." Fang froze. She'd never given this woman her name. "They have brothers and sisters who don't fight. They have children. And you want to kill all of them. You know what it's like to be an orphan. How would you feel about creating a few million more? Oh wait. There won't be any orphans. You'll kill all of them."
Fang went limp. Had her anger really gotten that bad? But there wasn't any other option. Cocoon wouldn't stop until everyone on Gran Pulse was dead. It was kill or be killed. But how had the woman known her name? Maybe this tree really was haunted.
"Who are you?" Fang fought to catch a glimpse of the other woman's face. All she saw were a pair of green eyes sparkling with amusement.
"We'll get to that." The woman patted Fang on the cheek. "It's all right to be angry, you know. But you can't let yourself get so angry that you forget who you are and what you stand for. Sure, kill all the soldiers they send after you. That's fair. Kill or be killed. But remember that not everyone up there deserves to die. One of these days, you might get the chance to bring down Cocoon, and I want you to remember what I said. They're not all vipers. Some of them are good people, maybe the best people you'll ever meet."
There was something about the way the other woman spoke that got on Fang's nerves. She spoke as though she knew some of those vipers.
"You're a traitor." Fang struggled again. "How many of them do you know?"
"I'm the last person you should be calling a traitor." The woman laughed and poked Fang in the cheek. Fang tried to bite her finger and got a poke on the forehead for her trouble. "I'm as loyal as they come, and so are you, most of the time."
"Most of the time?"
"Think of Vanille. Right now, she's probably having some horrible kind of nightmare about all the things she's seen. You know better than anyone that hospitals can be worse than the battlefield. She might even wake up scared and go looking for comfort. You're her older sister, the only family she has in the whole wide world. And where are you? You're out here with me instead of back home with her."
Shame filled Fang again. She should be with Vanille. Fear was not far behind. "How do you know so much about Vanille? Who are you?" The woman's voice was familiar, too familiar.
The woman let her stand, and Fang came up swinging. The woman dodged her first few attacks with the same disturbing ease and then folded her in half with a kick to the gut. Fang's breath rushed out of her. She stumbled back to her feet. Another kick laid her out on the damp grass.
"Honestly, you are a stubborn thing, aren't you?" The woman prodded Fang in the side with one foot. "As for who I am, you could say that I'm the ghost of Christmas Future."
"What?" Fang tried to grab the woman's leg. The woman stepped back out of reach. "That's doesn't make any sense." If only she could get to her spear.
The woman reached up to scratch her cheek. "Oh yeah, Christmas is more of a Cocoon thing. Oh well. It'll be easier if I show you." She pushed back the hood of her cloak.
Fang went still. That was her face looking back at her, only older. Everything from the eyes to the hair was hers. Even the smirk – the same one that Vanille loved to see – was the same. That smirk widened even more when the other woman saw Fang's reaction.
"Surprise."
Fang shook her head. "This isn't real." She got back to her feet. "I must be hallucinating or something."
Her older counterpart rolled her eyes and then punched Fang in the gut. "Does that feel real?"
Fang dropped to her knees. "Yes."
"Then it's real." The older Fang sighed. "Damn it. Serah was right. I really did have to punch you in the gut to make you believe I'm real."
"Serah?"
"Don't worry about her. You'll meet her… one day." The older Fang grinned and sat down by the fire. She patted the spot beside her. Not sure that she had any other option, Fang sat beside her.
"Those things you said to me… you really had a chance to destroy Cocoon?"
"You could say that. You might even say I had more than one chance."
"So we win?" Fang leaned forward. "Cocoon falls and Gran Pulse wins."
The older Fang shook her head. Her eyes were filled with pride and sorrow as she looked at Fang. "Nobody is going to win this war, kiddo. That's why I want you to listen closely. All of this killing – all of this war – I get why you do it. I've lived it. You don't have much of a choice. The people you're fighting don't have much of a choice either."
"What do you mean? They don't have to come down here trying to kill us."
"Maybe they do. Maybe they think they do. You'll work it out one day. Remember, not everyone from Cocoon is evil. Some of them are very good."
"So, you know some of those vipers?"
The older Fang laughed so hard she nearly fell over. "Oh yeah, you could say that. Hell, I married one of them."
"That can't be." Fang's eyes widened with horror. "I wouldn't. I –"
The older Fang only laughed harder. She slapped Fang over the back. "Right now, you think all of the people on Cocoon are monsters. They're not. Some of them – a lot of them – are ordinary people." Her voice softened. "You already know that family is about more than blood. One day, you'll understand that family doesn't care where people come from. It just cares."
"You make it sound like we lose." Fang stared into the fire. "You make it sound like Cocoon wins."
"I told you, nobody wins." The older Fang took a deep breath. "I can tell you that much. Deep down inside, though, you already knew that. You know that someone has to fight back. You know that only Anima can give you the power you want. But you're not stupid. You know that power is going to come with a price, a price you're willing to pay to make sure Vanille never cries again."
"What did you do?" Fang whispered. Her older counterpart looked haunted by the decision she'd made.
"I did what my heart told me to." The older Fang shrugged. "It was hard, but it's led me to where I am today."
"And where are you?"
"I'm happy. I have a family now, a real family. Sure, they're strange, but they're family. I wouldn't trade them for the world. Well, I might trade a few of them when they're being annoying, but you get what I mean."
"And Vanille?" Fang had to know. She couldn't bear it if something happened to Vanille.
"I probably shouldn't tell you, but I guess I can." The older Fang smiled. "She's fine. In fact, she's so ridiculously cheerful that sometimes I wish I could strangle her."
Fang couldn't help but laugh. She knew what that felt like. "Can you… can you show me?"
"A little. Come walk with me."
"Where?"
"To the other side of the tree."
Fang followed her to the other side of the tree and gasped. They were no longer in a great field of long grass. Instead, they were in the middle of a town. People walked the streets, smiling and talking. Houses of unfamiliar design sat behind carefully kept lawns. There were even a few white picket fences.
"What is this?"
"You asked to see, so I showed you." The older Fang chuckled. "It's not quite what you expected, is it?"
"They seem so happy." Fang shook her head. Where were the warriors? None of them were carrying any weapons. "These people don't know what war is, do they?"
"Not really, but that's a good thing. Don't worry. There are still warriors among them, warriors fine enough to match any from Gran Pulse."
"I doubt it."
"You'd be surprised." The older Fang's lips twitched. "And do you think I'd marry someone who couldn't keep up? No, she might not be quite as strong as me, but you'll never meet anyone faster than her. You might even say she's as fast as lightning." The older Fang laughed. Fang didn't see what was so funny. Then her older counterpart stepped back behind the tree. "Look over there."
Fang looked. A car drove past. The driver was hidden in the shadows of the dark interior, but the passenger was clearly visible. Lush pink hair settled around a face that was almost regal in its beauty. For a split-second, their eyes met, green on blue. Fang's heart thumped. Her gut clenched. A sense of familiarity swept over her. She knew this woman. But that was crazy. She'd never met someone with blue eyes and pink hair before.
The car was gone.
"Not bad, is she?" The older Fang came back around the tree and threw one arm over Fang's shoulder.
"Who was that?" Fang swallowed thickly. Was she from one of the other villages? If so, she had to find her. There was something about her, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. She had to meet her. She had to know what put such cold fire in those blue eyes.
"You'll meet her later." The older Fang looked up. The rain had started to slow. "Looks like I'm almost out of time."
"Wait!"
"Remember what I said. Don't let your anger get the best of you, and don't be afraid to trust a few people from Cocoon. Don't trust all of them, mind you. A lot of them are jerks, but you'll know the ones you can rely on when you see them. They'll prove themselves to you. They might even become family." The older Fang paused. "Oh, and one last thing: persistence is the key to love. Some people have all the emotional intelligence of a rock. Don't give up on them."
Fang stared. What did that even mean? The older woman strode into the long grass. Fang ran after her, but there was no one there. Her older counterpart was gone. A chill wind rustled past as the rain finally stopped. She grabbed her clothes and spear, took the meat she'd cooked, and ran back to the village.
When she got back home, Vanille was calling out in her sleep. Fang looked at the clock on the wall. Less than half an hour had passed since she'd left. That couldn't be right. She went upstairs and pulled Vanille into her arms.
"Fang?" Vanille latched onto her tightly and sobbed. "Fang…"
"It's okay." Fang settled into the bed beside Vanille. "I'm here. You're safe. Go back to sleep, I won't let you have any bad dreams."
"What are you going to do?" Vanille sniffled. "Beat them up?"
"If I have to."
"Dummy." Vanille curled up against Fang. "Are we going to be okay, Fang? With the war and everything…"
"I think so." Fang closed her eyes and ran her fingers through Vanille's hair. She could still see the smile on her older self's face. She'd been so happy, and apparently, Vanille was too. "By the way, Vanille, do you know anyone with pink hair? She might be a warrior."
"Pink hair?" Vanille giggled. "Whoever heard of a warrior with pink hair?"
Fang chuckled. That was a good point. No one with pink hair could be that scary. Could they?
X X X
Author's Notes
As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.
This is the companion piece to the previous chapter. In this chapter, however, it's future Fang visiting past Fang. Although Fang comes across as relatively happy go lucky in the game, I do think that she would have been quite an angry person at some points in her life. Watching her world come under constant attack does that to people. She also had a tendency to try and take everything on herself, to not accept the help of others. This is a problem she shares with Lightning, but I'd like to think an older Fang has realised that and learned how to deal with it.
I decided to have older Fang give younger Fang a bit of an ass kicking since I don't know if there's any other way that she could get her younger self to listen. I can't imagine a younger Fang taking too well to the whole "not everyone from Cocoon is evil" thing without a bit of physical persuasion. One of the pivotal choices Fang made in her life was to try and bring down Cocoon. I know how the story is supposed to, but I think if she'd really, really wanted to bring it down, she would have been able to the first time. Perhaps there was something else at work. Perhaps she realised that they didn't all deserve to die. At least, maybe that's how it goes.
There will be one more chapter. It will not be nearly as serious as either of these two chapters. Instead it will be more of a collection of omake since I had a lot of other ideas that I considered including but ended up scrapping since they had a completely different tone (the majority of them are humorous to the point of being extremely silly).
Finally, I hope that everyone who participated in the free promotions for The Last Huntress and The Gunslinger and the Necromancer enjoys the story/stories that they picked up. If you can, it would be great if you could take a few moments to leave a review on Amazon or to pick up one of my other stories, The Lord of Dark Waters (the sequel to The Last Huntress) and The Burning Mountains.
My apologies also to anyone who wanted to pick up a copy but could not. Unfortunately, Amazon has some rather strange policies regarding many of the countries in South-East Asia. For instance, there are countries where you cannot purchase an eBook from Amazon without obtaining a US-based credit card or something similar.
If you did enjoy The Last Huntress and The Lord of Dark Waters, I am currently working on the next story in the series. I won't give too much away but there are drakes, hydras… and one badass dragon. Yep, things are never boring for Scarlett and Rose.
As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.