Call Me Lightning by S.R. Kabala (aka. metacog), Chapter 2: "Those That Lie Beneath", Part 1 of 3, Draft 1, 6/20/2010

A/N: This is short again-I'm sorry. I was having writer's block, but I think I've outsmarted the problem. My draconian math circuits need to be distracted for hippie li'l language to sneak out in her sundress to play. I've kicked up a programming side-project for the bear to gnaw on. Meanwhile, things here are about to go dreadfully wrong for the Farron family. Claire does become Lightning for a reason, after all. Sgt. Amodar's run-in with Fang is coming next.

Call Me Lightning

Chapter 2:

Those That Lie Beneath

Their canoe cut gracefully through the reflection of sky. The lake water waved like blue silk in the breeze, and Claire bit into its shimmering skin with her oar, pulling through in smooth strokes. Beneath the rise and fall of glinting waves, a distant amber light glowed in the heart of the lake.

"Is that it? That light?"

"The ruins are too deep to see," Dad's baritone flowed from behind her as they slipped forward on rhythmed pulls. "It must be the submarine. We'll take that tour day after tomorrow."

Claire frowned but didn't argue. Maybe they lit the entire city when the u-boat chugged through it. Storing her curiosity for the day of the tour, the teen focussed on steady breathing and the swing of her arms. She felt surprisingly tireless after twenty hours of fitful sleep and exhaustion the day and night before. She'd struggled to keep her eyes open through an interview with a young Corps investigator, then collapsed into her bedroll, not crawling out again until the sunbird had soared high into his morning arc.

Rising from her convalescence, an energy the teen couldn't recall sizzled within her ribcage. Each cool breath thrummed in her bones. Not even coiled at the blocks in a championship race had she felt so charged, so sure of her own body. If the start gun barked, a veiled thought promised, she could sprint across the lake itself.

She grasped at the wild thought, but it shrank back into unconscious shadows before her attention could pin it for study. She caught only a fading impression of straw-colored hair. A memory. The freckled boy? Or his brother.

"You should have stayed with your sister yesterday." His voice was calm but firm.

Claire squinted behind her sunglasses, bracing for a lecture. Trapped on a canoe. Stupid. She glanced overboard, fantasizing about diving in to escape through the brisk waters. At least he doesn't sound mad.

"I know," she grumbled, pulling a little harder on her oar.

"I know you're older and maybe the games you two used to play aren't as fun anymore, but Serah needs you to be kind to her." The scent of brine splashed the teen's mind as her oar slapped the salted lake that had poured from the sea above when its city fell. "She idolizes you, Claire," Dad puffed as their pace tested him. "The things you say and do cut straight to her heart. Don't push her aside in your rush to become an adult. You'll look back when you get there and regret it. Besides, there's no gold medal for-" He gulped in an extra breath, drained by a speed they would normally carry for minutes on end. "-growing up at light speed. Just relax and row gently across the lake. You'll get there."

Claire eased off to let him catch his breath. Instinct told her to argue. Or, race on until he was too winded to talk at all. I'm not in a rush, I just...want different things. Serah's beaming smile at Mom as she took her hand this morning to go for a hike flashed in the teen's thoughts. 'In case I trip,' Mom would say, an excuse to hold her little girl's hand. The line and it's companion wink had lost their charm a couple years ago for Claire. Who holds hands with their Mom?

The girl stopped rowing and the fingers of air twining through her hair fell still. She tucked a loose, pink strand behind her ear and carefully pivoted to sit facing Dad. Sweating in the hard sunlight, he grinned in silent thanks for the break and lifted the front of his t-shirt to swipe rolling drops from his brow.

Claire laid her oar across her lap and took a long sip from her water bottle, listening to the waves kiss the fiberglass hull in passing. The canoe rolled in a lazy turn as it rose and fell like a pendant resting on the chest of Lake Bresha as he slept.

The teen grinned as her escape plan formed. "You're afraid I'll start bringing boys home," she teased.

"Maker! Don't tell me you'll skip right past footsie and milkshakes to bringing them home?" He swigged from his green sports-ade, and wiped his forehead again.

"Footsie?"

"Never mind. Has a boy asked you out?"

Maybe jumping in the lake would have been a better plan. "...a few."

Dad leaned forward, suddenly very interested. "Older boys?"Her old man frowned behind his aviator sunglasses and looked down at the haphazard pile of snacks in the belly of their canoe. "I'll move my cutlass by the door," he muttered, rubbing his chin.

Claire bit her lip and looked away to the horizon. Bresha flipped a half-million flashing panes beneath a crown of gold and scarlet leaves like a slow-whirling diamond in a fire. She knew he knew. Knew he probably knew. Mom had given up her gentle prodding and returned to normal as if Claire had told her. The teen took a deep breath. Why not? The lake was still a valid Plan B. "Dad...what if I brought a girl home?"

He looked up from the treats instantly, eyes cloaked behind reflections of the lake and sky. Was he holding his breath? He pushed the sunglasses up onto his thinning platinum hair, exposing wide but still unreadable blue eyes. "Do you want to?"

The teen winced but held his gaze from behind her own shades. "...sometimes."

He shifted a leg forward to avoid tumbling into a box of Chocobonbons as he perched on the edge of his seat. Cobalt eyes danced, and a mischievous quirk tugged at his lips. "Any one in particular?"

"No." Claire sighed in relief. She'd hoped for acceptance but had never expected excitement.

"Liar. I bet she's a blond." Or teasing.

"Really, Dad, there's no one." The teen plucked a Sugara from their junk food stash and quickly unwrapped the crinkling paper, stuffing half the candy into her mouth in one muffling bite.

Dad frowned and his glasses flipped clumsily off his brow. He plucked them off in a practiced gesture of coolness that wasn't quite as impressive when the shades already dangled from one ear. Claire smirked around her mouthful of maple nougat.

"Why not?" He rubbed the silver lenses in a fold of his shirt. "You're beautiful and smart, athletic and caring. Ah!" He raised the spotless aviators to hark his epiphany. "That's it! They're intimidated, but it won't last." He waved a leg of the glasses at her before sliding them back on. "Hormones always win out. I'll just move my cutlass by the door..."

Claire choked and swallowed the suddenly dry morsel of candy. She hid a flaring blush with a long drink of water and wiped an escaped drop from her chin. "Didn't you just say I was intimidating? I don't need help from a pirate father."

"I have to make sure they're—she's good enough for you."

"By challenging her to a duel?"

"Only the sporty ones. It's perfectly named, too: 'cut' 'lass'." Dad puffed his chest out at his own pun.

Claire groaned and shook her head. "I can't talk about this with you."

"That's my goal."

The teen laughed and her shoulders relaxed. "Thanks for being cool."

"One of my countless gifts," he replied with mock arrogance,. His smile was thin and his breathing shallow. Claire thumbed through the signs of heat stroke in her mind. "Have you told your Mom?"

"Not yet. And, it's not..." His hand shook slightly as he held his drink to his lips, downing the last of the bottle before tossing it into their plunder. "I mean, sometimes boys are cute. It's just not quite the same, you know?"

"No, but I'll take your word for it." He was sweating and pale. Not a heat stroke, but they should head for shore. "Your mom is 'cool,' too; we've talked about you," he went on, oblivious to her concern. "It hurts her to think you don't trust her. If you feel comfortable telling her soon... This isn't something I want to keep from my wife for long. I don't like having secrets from her, but I won't say anything you don't want me to."

"I just...haven't had the right moment." As their boat lolled in its lazy spin, the distant war shrine swung into view. An obsidian miniature of Ragnarok 'flew' towards Dad from it's perch on the cliff, a trick of angle like the photograph Mom took of him holding the moon in his hand. A heart attack would hurt, right? And, he wasn't confused... Keep talking. "She's definitely cool?"

"As the winter wind. You were different five years ago, Claire, and you'll be different five years from now, and that's part of a parent's blessing-discovering the person your child becomes. Whoever our oldest daughter turns out to be, we'll love her because she's you."

Claire tried to return his wan smile, too worried to acknowledge his promise of devotion. Maybe he's too macho to admit he doesn't feel good. "Let's head back and fry the impos you and Mom caught."

"In a bit," he sighed. Dad stretched back on the stern deck and cupped his hands behind his head. "It's too perfect out to hurry today."

"You don't look too good, Dad."

"But, your mother married me anyway. I'm fine, princess, just tired. Enjoy the sunshine with me."

Grudgingly, Claire followed his lead and laid back on the bow. How am I supposed to enjoy a chipped edge digging into my shoulders? The canoe swayed gently, and she looked up at the pristine clouds, shifting to a moderately comfortable posture. Gnarled tendrils of steel corkscrewed down from the girders and bulwarks holding their mainland aloft, still reaching for the city that fell from their grasp. The Sanctum government had dammed in the artificial sea but left the Hanging Edge as a graphic testament to the native's murderous aggression. Even after five centuries of peace and no connection to the tragedy, a stab of anger pressed in Claire's gut. People were people, then and now.

Their artificial continent was a spherical fortress of paradise hovering miles above the deadly mother planet. Here they could live without fear of rapacious storms or slaughtering devils. Without risk of failed crops or roving beasts. The Merciful Triad-Lindzei, Eden, and Orphan-had saved humankind from the planet's doom. The only scar in a millennia of clockwork history was the gash in their vaulted heaven, left open to remind the people of Cocoon the cost of a lapse in vigilance. The fate of those who forget.

An icy gust lurched the rocking lullaby of the canoe. The scent of cold brine filled the teen's nose as a distant screech like scraping metal keened from below. Claire twirled to frown overboard. That can't be the u-boat...

"Claire..."

Time seemed to stretch as dread spiraled in her stomach at the ring of fear in her father's voice. She turned into the stinging breeze. A hissing specter bared sharks teeth at her as it clutched Dad's limp body in a dozen skeletal arms. It shrieked and leapt overboard. She dove to grasp Dad's ankle. His frosted skin burned in her hand as it plunged below the water. She caught her knees inside the boat and the harpy raced through the water with the boat in tow.

/The oar!/ Claire found herself swinging it like a scimitar. It sliced through the lake like air and broke a bony fist at the wrist. She pulled hard and lifted Dad from the water, the sizzling feeling in her chest a roaring heat.

She swept the paddle against another double-elbowed arm and splintered the radius. The wraith screeched and loosed a claw to slash at her face, but her darting oar blade struck first, slapping its skull off. The arms flailed and released. It's body dove in a flurry of bones after it's sinking face.

Claire pulled Dad fully on board with shaking arms and listened for his breath. A weak rasp cooled her cheek, and she almost cried with relief.

She jumped into the bow seat, grabbing the second oar and spinning it into a paired grip that held the individual paddles as a set. The blades windmilled as she raced for shore. A fleeting thought gaped at the unholy speed of their flight across the water. Is this what an AMP shot feels like? She had the augments of a super soldier but no time to question where they came from.

Momentum cut a trench onto the beach as the canoe lurched to a halt and pitched them onto the sand. Claire spat the grit from her mouth and brushed her eyes clean, leaping back to hover over the listless heap of her father. His wheezing was stronger and a pink tinge had returned to his skin.

"Dad?" She shook him. "Dad!"

Laying his unconscious form back, she searched for his phone. Claire plucked it from a wet cargo pocket, but her thumb froze over the keys as a dead screen stared at her. In a fit, she threw it into the forest and it sailed like a gold arrow before shattering against a tree.

She sprinted for their campsite. "Mom!" The forest blurred as errant branches whipped her streaking arms and legs. In a blink she was standing in their empty campsite.

"Mom?"

"Claire?" A voice from the hiking trail. Serah!

The teen ran in leaping strides, cutting a sharp corner to find Serah racing towards her. She stopped short and held her arms out to catch her sister in a hug. The girl recoiled, tipping back to fall in sudden terror. "Your eyes are lights!"

Claire held empty arms out, unable to fathom the rejection. "Where's Mom?"

Serah gaped up at her, clutching Mom's phone to her chest in a quivering hand as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Where's Dad?"