A/N: So, new chapter, people!
On a side note: has anyone noticed that Lightning and Hope have a lot in common? They both have turquoise eyes (although different shades), they are the most effective l'Cie in battle (imo since Hope has the full magic package and Lightning turns all her enemies into paste) and they both have the most awesome eidolons…
WARNING: contains blood and gore, readers be warned this is an M rated chap and so the rating shall be changed.
Lightning and her l'Cie captive made their way through the junk in a desperate attempt to leave the Vile Peaks. The soldier was having a hard time getting the boy to move as he kept "getting tired" from the constant marching. Also, her left hand was going numb from her cut and she was beginning to feel the strain of blood loss taking its toll.
The l'Cie stopped. "P-please… just a second… to… catch my…" he panted.
Lightning was at her wit's end. She twirled around in a huff and stomped over toward her captive. "I told you…" she grabbed him by the throat "… that if you didn't hurry up…" she picked him up off the ground effortlessly and turned in the direction she was before "… I would kill you!" she then threw the young l'Cie and gave him a violent kick that sent him soaring skyward.
He flew through the air, yelping in pain and fright, before coming down and falling along the side of a steep drop-off; a loud clank coming from the impact, along with the familiar sound of metal piercing flesh. Lightning hurried over to the edge.
"Oh no…" she managed to say, before jumping down to assist the l'Cie.
He had fallen onto a rusty pipe that had subsequently pierced his leg and was protruding from just above his kneecap. "Ahh! It hurts! It hurts!" he shrieked as he writhed in pain.
"Hold still!" Lightning ordered, trying to examine his injury. It didn't look good: the pipe had bone wedged into it; meaning that it had, surprisingly, gone through the femur and, quite possibly, had severed an artery or vein. "Fuck…" was all she could say as she hadn't brought any potions with her on her mission.
"Take it out…" she thought she heard the l'Cie say.
She looked up to meet his gaze. "What?" she asked, unsure if she had heard him correctly.
"Take… it… out!" he managed to say between pants. His voice was serious, despite being high pitched from the agony, and his face, though contorted in pain, was somewhat calm. All in all he seemed lucid.
Lightning shook her head. "No! You'll bleed to death!" she exclaimed matter-of-factly.
"I'll b-bleed… to death… a-anyway…" he was clinging on to his consciousness in a desperate attempt not to faint "I can… h-heal myself…" he stated.
Lightning let what he said soak in before replying. "No… I'm not gonna trust some kid's stupid plan!" she exclaimed.
"I might… be a kid… but I'm… also a… l'Cie…" he said as he was beginning to feel himself slip into unconsciousness "… if I die… what do you lose?" he asked.
Lightning was asking herself that very question. 'What would I lose?' she asked herself again and again. For some reason the answer came to her from looking at his face. She felt compelled to keep her young l'Cie alive, despite what she had been ordered to do. "If I take it out… it'll hurt." She said, wanting to make sure he'd remain conscious enough to heal himself and survive the ordeal.
He nodded and Lightning grabbed a steady hold of the bloody, rusted pipe. Without hesitation she pulled on it, forcing it to reverse its trajectory through the boy's leg. He screamed in pain, but managed to conjure up a small sphere of glowing energy that washed over his body.
Lightning marvelled at the way that the bone, flesh, tissue and skin reformed perfectly without leaving so much as a scar. "Not bad… maybe you aren't such a pathetic-" she heard a thud as the l'Cie's body fell limp and his head hit the floor.
The soldier rose to her feet and started pacing. She was weighing her options, trying to find a way that would ensure their survival. All paths, however, seemed to lead to her having to abandon her captive in order to go on herself. She looked back at the unconscious boy. He looked so young, yet so mature at the same time. His khaki shorts where torn and dirty from his recent experiences, including his loss of bladder control from meeting the soldier, and his yellow jacket, black t-shirt, scarf and face were stained a deep shade of crimson from the blood that spurted out of his wound when Lightning had removed the pipe; forming the grim image of broken innocence.
She sighed and walked over to her bloody captive, just realizing that she herself was soaked in the red fluid, and picked him up. 'l'Cie or no, nobody deserves to die in a place like this…' she looked at his face '… especially this young…' she then began marching with the young l'Cie in her grasp.
The trek wasn't easy, as Lightning could feel herself begin to weaken and her vision haze. She had left her hand's wound to go unchecked and that was a huge mistake. She tried to ignore it, tried to keep a steady hold of the l'Cie in her arms and tried to put one leg in front of the other, but it was no use; her body ended up winning.
"Damn it! Not now…" she cried as she fell to her knees. She placed the boy onto the ground and slumped down next to him, her consciousness beginning to fade as her vision darkened. 'I'm sorry… Serah' were her final thoughts...
All of a sudden Lightning felt warmth wash over her body, like a wave of spring water. As her senses came to, she opened her eyes and looked around; taking in her surroundings to the best of her abilities. She was lying on the ground with her right arm tucked under her breast; her left arm was stretched outward with her hand being caressed gently. She felt a presence looming over her and looked up.
The only things that her hazy, unfocused vision managed to make out, was a pair of big turquoise eyes looking back at her. "Serah…?" she muttered.
"Uhh… no…" responded a boy's voice.
The soldier's vision began to focus and she saw that it was her l'Cie captive looking down upon her. "You…!?" she asked with unmasked confusion as she tried to sit upright.
The l'Cie rushed to catch her as she tumbled backwards from dizziness. "Hey, easy! I mean… you lost a lot of blood… don't move too much yet." He said with concern.
Lightning shook herself free of the remaining nausea and looked at the boy with obvious confusion. "I thought you'd have run to the hills by now…" she said with small chuckle "… why'd you stick around, kid?"
"Hope." He stated.
"Huh?" once again, confusion entered her expression.
"My name is Hope… Hope Estheim." He explained. "And as for the reason I stuck around was…" he blushed "… cause you were hurt." He said quickly, as if hiding something.
Lightning looked down at her hand. Hope was caressing and massaging it and it seemed as if the pain had gone. "Why did you help me? I thought that if I went down, you'd be home free." She stated, enjoying the gentle kneading on her hand.
Hope looked down at the soldier's fingers, resting between his own. "Well… for starters…you didn't kill me, so, for that, I'm grateful." He said as memories of how countless soldiers had tried to put a bullet between his eyes flooded his mind. "And… you did help me, so I'm grateful for that, also…" he subconsciously placed his right hand over where his wound was "… also…" he looked up at the soldier who was waiting for him to continue "… you were calling out to someone so I… I decided to help…" his cheeks were turning pink again.
Lightning, true to her "name", pulled back her hand quickly, as if burned by fire. She then rose to her feet, dusting off all the grime and filth from her outfit. She turned towards Hope, who rose with her and was currently looking at his feet.
"Thanks for the help, Hope, but don't think I'll grant any favours for kissing my ass…" she stated, rather flustered "You're a l'Cie and I'm a soldier… so I'll do my civic duty and bring you in." she was talking more to herself than to the l'Cie.
The boy looked up, gazing at his jailor with furrowed brows. "Bring me in where?" he asked, his solemn voice echoed with an icy edge in Lightning's ear.
Lightning blinked. The kid had caught her in a trap. She couldn't bring him to PSICOM, for they would just brand her a traitor along with him, and she couldn't bring him to the Guardian Corps; no telling what trouble that would bring…
She remembered something that that adult l'Cie had said about 'getting the kid home'. "Hey…" she called to Hope.
"Hmm?" he responded, eyes wide with curiosity.
"You got family in Palompolum?" the soldier asked, hoping that the kid wasn't an orphan who lived on the streets stealing purses.
At the mention of family, Hope's eyes averted Lightning's gaze and he shrunk into a timid, almost frightened, stance. "Y-yeah… my… dad" his voice was soft and quiet, almost as though he was afraid to be heard.
Lightning chose to ignore the l'Cie's shift in behaviour; she had enough problems. "Good, then it's settled. We'll go to Palompolum, drop you off at your house and then I'll be on my way…" she stated somewhat cheerfully. This was the first time since her birthday that she had a plan to follow and so came a feeling of triumph with her new, self-devised mission.
Hope simply nodded. It had been the same with Sazh, the last adult to "take charge" of him and, quite frankly, he was sick of it. He was sick of being treated like a bag of heavy, useless junk… always pushed around by somebody else in order to get rid of him quickly. It was like that before he became a l'Cie and now… now he felt more unwanted than ever.
"I'll go easy on you, kid, but don't think I'll get too soft on you… we still have over a day of constant marching, before we reach the Gapra Whitewood… that should be two nights, including tonight. Don't worry, we'll stop to sleep." She stated, giving Hope no time to object to any of the 'mission objectives' that Lightning decreed.
The beginning of their trek was relatively easy; Lightning felt like she had renewed strength, probably from the healing magics that her l'Cie companion performed on her. However, as they journeyed, Hope began to get even more tired as he balanced healing the party and keeping up with the headstrong woman; all the while dodging the many different monsters of the peaks.
"Enough… please…" Hope cried as he dropped to his knees, panting desperately for air. It must have been the middle of the night, he figured, but it was impossible to tell as Phoenix never shone its light over Cocoon's rubbish dump.
Lightning sheathed her gunblade. "I guess it's a good enough location to rest…" she said as she checked the area "… I'll go see if I can catch anything for you to eat." She stated before heading off into the gullies of junk.
Hope, once left alone, decided to gather together pieces of junk that he thought might contain remnants of fuel. Once he had made his pile he reached out his hands, concentrating his magical power. "Fire…" he whispered, before shooting a small tongue of flame from his fingertips.
The junk ignited almost instantaneously and the l'Cie proudly sat down next to his "bonfire". He watched the flames flicker and saw how the metal started to glow red hot from the heat. While looking at this little display of flames, Hope started to think about things: about his now-deceased mother, about the one who took her away, about his fate as a l'Cie and… about his new female companion who had yet to reveal her name.
Just as he commenced thinking about her, Lightning marched into Hope's little 'camp'; carrying some kind of militarized abomination. "Here…" she said as she tossed it in front of the boy.
Hope recognized the beast. It was a Thexteron, a creature that was 'modified' by the Sanctum army. "Umm…" he looked at Lightning with both worry and confusion.
"Don't worry, just separate the fleshy parts from the… altered ones" she stated matter-of-factly.
The l'Cie began to nervously prod the beast, not having a clue of what to do, and then flipped the creature on its back. "Umm… what do I do now?" he asked.
Lightning produced a survival knife that was around four inches in length. "Here, use this… but be careful with it!" she exclaimed while handing it to the boy. "It was a gift…" she then whispered to herself.
Hope took it and marvelled at the blade's sharpness. He then plunged it into the beast's belly and began to carve a bloody opening up towards its chest. Once he had opened the thing up, he saw a variety of modifications to the beast's skeletal structure. "What did they do to this thing?" he asked in disgust.
Lightning, who was now standing guard, turned her head towards Hope. "They keep certain animals penned up in selected environments and then give them food chosen by the keepers…" she began, knowing only very little about the matter, herself.
"And then they do… this to them?" Hope interrupted.
Lightning groaned. "Don't interrupt if you want me to continue…" she waited for a nod in confirmation from her young companion before continuing "… no, they then subjugate the animals to selective breading… usually of the "inbreeding" kind, to develop further mutation." She ended with a small yawn.
"Inbreeding?" asked Hope.
"Yeah, it's when they make all the mommies and daddies have "happy fun time" with their kids…" she stated with heavy sarcasm, ending her moronic explanation with a chuckle.
Hope's cheeks went red. "I know what it means!" he stated with embarrassment. He then cut himself. "Owch!" he cried as he pulled back his hand.
Lightning sighed. "See what happens… when you're not paying attention?" she said, turning around. She then walked over to the carcass. "Can you heal yourself?" she asked.
"Yeah…" said the l'Cie, embarrassed. He then concentrated energy into his hands and his l'Cie brand, located on his wrist underneath his bandana, started glowing a pale green colour. "cure" he whispered, releasing the healing energies into his body and, subsequently, healing the gash on the side of his left hand.
Lightning knew that she would never get used to the sight of magic in action as the tingling energy emitted from her charge. She then took hold of her birthday present, now covered in blood, and dangled it in front of Hope's eyes. "Look… this is how you gut an animal…" she explained as she tried to show the l'Cie how to survive "… first is where to cut: the underside is full of guts that can rupture and spread bacteria…" she opened up the gash that Hope had made and showed him "… you should start at the legs or the throat, that's where the muscle is at…" she looked up to the l'Cie "… are you paying attention!?" she exclaimed.
After a small nod from Hope, Lightning continued explaining how to skin the animal; putting extra effort into piercing the beast's rock-hard hide. After messily taking the Thexteron's hide apart in unconventional strips, Lightning started carving into the leg in an effort to separate the tough meat from the genetically-modified bones; being too hard to snap. By the time she was done, four slivers of meat were steadily cooking on the pile of red-hot metal plates; the flames having died down long before.
Hope looked at his female companion with concern. "What about you?" he asked.
Lightning, who had taken up a sitting position opposite him, turned her head. "I'm… not hungry" she simply stated.
Hope continued to look at her with concern evident in his wide, almond-shaped eyes. "You sure?" he asked before receiving a dismissive brushing motion from Lightning. He hesitantly took a sliver of dark brown roasted meat and took a bite.
The flavours danced on the boy's tongue like a swirling current going through an ocean of textures. Indeed, being the first thing he ate since before he boarded the purge train, he couldn't hold back the tears welling up in his eyes; gentle, muted sobs resonated in the night air as he cried with unmasked joy. However, the l'Cie couldn't help but feel guilt's bitter taste taint the euphoria he was feeling; seeing the soldier smiling unknowingly at him.
When he swallowed, Hope lied back against a large, rusted plate of metal embedded in the ground. "You still haven't told me your name…" said the silvery-haired boy, practically begging for an answer.
The soldier looked at him. "Lightning… but you can call me Light, if you want." She stated, the day's exhaustion beginning to settle in.
Hope started to blush as he formed another question. "Umm… who's Serah?" he asked.
Lightning's eyes shot wide open. "How do you know that name!?" she blurted out, furiously.
Hope shied backwards into the metal plate he was leaning against. "Y-you were calling out to her… back when you passed out and were…" he explained, stopping before saying something he might regret.
Lightning calmed down and looked curiously at the young l'Cie. "Were… what?" she asked.
Hope's cheeks flared a deeper shade of red. "Well… you were… snuggling into… me" he said hesitantly, embarrassed.
The soldier gasped quietly and turned her gaze, cheeks flaring as she did so. "I…" there was an awkward and uneasy silence between the two. After the silence dragged on too long, Lightning spoke. "Serah… she was my sister." She stated solemnly.
Hope picked up on the solemn tone in her voice. "Was?" he asked, careful not to strike a nerve.
Lightning looked angrily at the inquisitive little l'Cie, but found her anger fade at the sight of his wide, almond-shaped eyes. She sighed. "She was made a l'Cie… and was trapped inside the Vestige when they took it… I… I didn't do a thing to help her." She said, her voice dripping with regret.
Hope gasped in shock. "Wait… when I was… in the Vestige there was a girl named Sarah who turned to crystal after talking to… a man named Snow…" he spat the last part with a venom that could kill behemoths.
Lightning took no notice of the l'Cie's dark tone and simply kept on hearing that Sarah had turned to crystal, like a booming echo that was only beginning to sink in to her brain. She bore a vacant expression for the remainder of the time that Hope was awake. When he slumped down to sleep, she let her façade shatter.
Lightning never cried. Not when her parents died, not when her sister was made a l'Cie and not when her only friend was killed. But this was too much… all at once she had lost seemingly everything. But then, looking at the young l'Cie slumbering peacefully opposite her, she was reminded that she had not lost everything as she saw the boy's brand poke out from the edge of the bandana wrapped around his wrist. And so, tears began to fall as she was reminded of the one thing she still possessed: her fate.
Unbeknownst to her was that Hope feigned sleep and was silently wishing he knew more about the beautiful soldier weeping in front of him; and that he knew of a way to ease her pain.
A/N: So… not as long as I had planned, but I felt that if I didn't end it here I would regret it. Main reason for the delay: Lightning. I had to think deeply about keeping her in character (and I still failed miserably) so I apologize for that… from now on I think these chaps will be M rated so… no kids? Well whatever…
