A/N: ... I apologize for calling you guys sons-of-a-(bleep)s in the last chapter... So to make it up, I made this chapter longer. So enjoy! Also, I recommed listening to Pendulum's cover of The Catalyst by Linkin Park (if you're interested in electro and/or rock... or the acoustic version of All Around Me by Flyleaf. I wrote this chapter while listening to these songs... I love them both ^.^


Chapter Four

Bartholomew Eistheim, Hope's father, had been found by Sazh at the pathway between the Archylte Steppe and Yaschas Massif, the Vallis Media. He had been stuck in the mountainous pathway for weeks along with the Cavalry, a division of Guardian Corps who was led by Cid Raines, who was protecting Bartholomew from the so called 'cursed' l'Cie. Only now they see that they are the heroes, and not the evil villains that everyone had claimed them to be.

But for Bartholomew, he had known all along. He had been hiding his branded son and his other companions, who were also branded. Hiding them from the PSICOM. He was willing to be Purged and risk his position in the Sanctum to save them, but Lightning and the others had developed a plan to make it seem that he was being held against his will to hide them. That may be the only reason why he is still alive today.

Back at camp, Sazh landed his air ship to the naturally constructed air base. Turning all systems off, he jumped out of the pilot's seat and onto the ground below. He landed clumsily, and rubbed at his aging, aching back.

"Damn, I better not do that again..." He mumbled to himself. He walked over to the middle of the air ship, and at the main exit, he met up with the some two hundred people he picked up from Vallis Media. Never again will he pick up that many people; their weight affected the flight of the air ship, which was not good at all. Out of them all, Bartholomew ran up to Sazh.

"Do you know where my son is?" Bartholomew asked breathlessly.

"I don't know... Would you like for us to search for him?" Sazh asked, not knowing exactly who is son is. He wasn't with the others when they were hiding from the l'Cie, but with Vanille.

"Yes, Yes please..."

"Alright, hold on a sec..." He faced towards the other one-hundred ninety nine people. "You guys must register over in that direction!" He yelled as he pointed into a direction. They all started slowly walking towards the registrations.

"This way." Sazh said to Bartholomew as he started walking. Bartholomew followed, and they soon came to a booth. They walked in, and Sazh came up to a binder filled with papers of people's information on a table.

"Okay, what's their last name?" Sazh asked.

"Eistheim." Bartholomew said as he stared at the binder.

That sounds familiar... Sazh thought to himself.

"And their first name?"

"Hope."

Sazh dropped the binder to the floor. This man... was Hope's father? He turned to him.

"You mean a kid with silver hair, and turquoise eyes? He's like fourteen or fifteen years old?"

"Yes! Yes, that's my son. Do you know him?" Bartholomew exclaimed.

"Yes... I was one of his companions... We were both l'Cie." A smile formed on Bartholomew's face. After a minute of thinking, he quickly took out his radio telecommunication device. "Team NORA, this is Sazh." He spoke into it.

"Yeah, what's up?" Gadot answered.

"If you see Hope, tell him his dad is here."

"Aye aye, sir!" Maqui shouted in the background.

"Knock it off, Maqui! You're not a freakin' pirate!" Yuj could be clearly heard yelling at him.

"I wasn't trying to be! Isn't that what people say when they answer their walkie-talkie thingys?"

"NO!"

"Yeah Sazh, we'll make sure to tell him... Hey! You two stop messing around, or I'll knock y'all back to Cocoon!" Gadot said before he got disconnected. Sazh sighed heavily, Young-in's these days...

"Do you know where he is? Is he okay?" He interrupted Sazh's trail of thought.

"Hold on a second..." Sazh took out another device, and raised it towards his mouth. "Find Hope Eistheim." He spoke into the device. A hologram of a map popped up, and a red dot was flashing on the map.

"0.4 miles from your location. Start traveling north west." A robotic, female voice had said. Sazh looked towards Bartholomew.

"Let's go." Sazh said as he and Bartholomew started running.


"Hurry up! She needs an IV bag!" One of the nurses called out. Lightning lay unconscious on the ground on a blanket. Serah, Snow, Vanille, and the others stood a few feet away, watching as nurses try to put liquid in the woman before she suffers from even further hydration. They quickly stuck her in the arm, and drew out blood into a vile first before hooking her to the IV. They'll need to examine her blood, to determine exactly what's wrong with her.

"Here, take this to the doctor quick." A male nurse said as he handed the tube to another nurse. He then came up to Serah.

"We will have to test her blood, to see exactly what's wrong with her..." She walked over and got a clipboard and a pen from a table from the opposite side of the tent. "You are her only family... right?" She asked Serah. She just nodded weakly to confirm the woman. She handed her the clipboard. "You'll need to sign some papers... just in case something goes wrong and... well you get it..." She concluded quickly as she saw Serah's face change into sadness. Hope and Maqui burst the room, and jogged over to Vanille.

"Is Light okay?" Maqui asked frantically and out of breath.

"I... We don''t know yet." Vanille said as she stared at the pink-haired woman on the ground.

Sazh and Bartholomew bust through the room too, much like Hope and Maqui had just a few moments ago. Sazh ran up to Hope, breathing hard from running.

"Boy, we were looking all over for you. First, you were outside the camp, and then you came back in, and now you're in here? What were you- oh..." Sazh finally caught sight of the unconscious Lightning laying on the floor. "That explains so much... but never mind that! Your dad's here!" Sazh said as he turned around and gestured at Bartholomew.

"Hope." Bartholomew, eyes glistening, ran up to his son. He hugged him with such strength, it clearly showed how much he cared for the boy. He held Hope's head to his shoulder.

"So beautiful..." Sazh whimpered before wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, and then blowing his nose into it rather very loudly.

"My son... I'm so proud of you... all of you." He turned to everyone else. "You all saved everyone on Cocoon."

"Dad..." Hope was blushing at his father's words, clearly embarrassed and happy at the same time.

"But we couldn't save Cocoon itself..." Lightning whispered suddenly. Everyone turned to her, shocked. Serah and Vanille ran to her side.

"Light, are you okay?" Serah asked as she grabbed her sister's hand. She held onto it as tight as possible.

"Serah, I'm... I'm fine..." She said between shaky breaths as she sat up.

"Look at you, you are not fine!" She didn't mean to yell at her, but to have her say she's okay is not right.

"Yes, I am Serah..." She tried to stand up, but her skull twisted in a vicious pain. She sat back down, her eyes narrowed. Her hands then flew up to the sides of her head, and clenched at her hair.

"Lightning?" Vanille looked at her questioningly.

"Ngh!" She grunted in pain. She was staring at the floor with such intensity, as if concentrating on something other than this pain would channel it elsewhere. It got worse.

"What's wrong with her?" Bartholomew asked, but no one had seemed to acknowledge him. He walked closer, to observe the young woman.

She yelled this time, Bartholomew backed up a little. He and Snow ran out to get the doctors. She was sweating slightly, and her the veins in her neck and forehead were protruding slightly.

"...Dammit!" She yelled.

"Lightning! What's wrong?" Vanille asked her. Lightning started panting again, and her vision began to blur like last time... before she fell unconscious.

"M-My head..." she stammered out.

"Someone hurry with the nurses!" Serah yelled out.

"I'll go get them!" Sazh too went to search for any help. All that remained in the room was Lightning, Serah, Vanille, and Hope. The three of them all surrounded her.

"Hope, let's use cura!" Vanille suggested quickly as she too attempted at using cure. "Huh?" Vanille stared down at her hands.

"What's wrong?" Hope asked as he was about to use his healing powers.

"It's not working..." Vanille tried again, but there was no use.

"What?" Serah exclaimed.

"Here, let me try..." He let his hands hover over Lightning's body, and put all of his power into it. Yet, nothing would come out. "No, this can't be right! What's going on here?"

"I don't know..." Vanille whispered, bewildered at the situation before her. She stood up quickly, and started to search around the room in a frantic frenzy.

"Vanille, what are you doing?" Serah said as she stared at the girl.

"I'm trying to find something to help Lightning!"

"But there's no medicine in here!" Hope yelled at her.

"There just might be! We would never know if we don't look!" Vanille said as she searched through cabinets and drawers all over the room.

"The medicine's is all in the main doctor's tent!" He snapped at her. Even Serah was slightly taken aback at Hope's tone. Vanille whipped around.

"Then why don't you go get it!" Vanille said angrily.

"I'm not allowed in there, because I'm so obviously not a doctor!"

Their consistent arguing was making Lightning feel ten times worse. She wanted to say something to them... scream at them to just shut up. But she just couldn't. She hadn't enough willpower to handle the pain in her head and the pain that they were causing in her ears.

"Stop..." she whispered. No one had heard her. Serah was trying to stop Hope and Vanille's argument, but she just couldn't get through to them.

"Stop it... please..." she begged almost silently. Yet their voices was all she heard. She couldn't even hear herself think anymore. She finally just snapped.

"S-Stop! Both of you a-are being ridiculous! Stop with this nonsense and actually work together! W-What happened with being comrades? Did that die along w-with Cocoon too!" She yelled out, stuttering sometimes from the pain.

Shame were painted on their faces, but Serah just stared at Lightning in shock. There was something glowing... Yes, in the middle of her chest... A bright light began to shine through the fabric of her brown turtleneck.

"I-I'm supposed to protect you two? So, when I'm n-not around, this is how you two will act? If you can't h-help each other, then why should I help you-!" Then, her breaking point. "Ah!" a blood curdling scream tore from her throat.

It felt like she was hit in the head with a hammer. Her body suddenly began to glow, growing brighter on her chest then spreading throughout her body. She began to shimmer from her insides with light, and she began to scream even more.

A white light erupted in the room, and took everyone's sight away. It erupted from underneath Lightning, like how their eidolons were summoned. Only this had a different pattern than Lightning's usual one. This was more intracit, and was white and gold. The whole room shook with such power, it felt as if they were stuck in the midst of a high altitude earthquake. Now it felt as if the were in an elevator traveling at fifty miles per hour. Everyone screamed at the top of their lungs as the spinning and shaking came to it's most violent. They were all lifted into the air, and came crashing down... hard.


Well... I just don't know how the hell I have brought it to this point o_o" I do have an idea though... to me, it seems kind of stupid, but we'll see... Reviews are/will be greatly appreciated :)