Semper Eadem
Disclaimers: FFXIII is not mine, I'm not selling this blab la bla. Just a little fanfiction.
Spoilers: eventually for chapter 13. So finish the game or be spoiled. The cie'th stones can wait. Seriously. I've tried them. A level is completely nuts.
Pairing: Fang/Lightning & Fang/Vanille
Rating: M for violence/gore and language. I don't think it's all that bad, but if you're squeamish, an extra caution for the end of the chapter.
Author's Notes: I'll try to keep the chapters short this time and simply update more often J
OOO
A shock of pain roused Snow from his slumber; his head throbbed in agony. The morning light was piercing, a blinding white fury. Gradually, he became aware of the floor beneath him, his limbs crumpled under him. There was a couch beside him, the one he'd fallen from only moments ago. He collected himself, got to his knees. Sazh was splayed over the same chair he passed out in during the night; his neck was unnaturally bent backward, Adam's apple strained against his throat. His mouth hung open and caught a lungful of deep, irritating snores. A loud retch turned Snow's attention to the window.
The sound continued, worsened as time flitted by. Snow staggered to the windowsill and cautiously put his head through the glassless space. Underneath him, just outside the house, Hope stood with his body bent forward, a hand to his stomach, puking onto the pavement. The contents of his gut jetted from his mouth. Between retches, the boy groaned in torment. Snow prepared a cup of juice for him and headed into the courtyard.
"Oh god, I hate myself," Hope murmured before another fit seized him.
The foul scent nearly set Snow's own sickness off, but he swallowed the nausea and handed the boy the drink. He was, after all, responsible for his current predicament. Hope refused it.
"I don't wanna move," he said miserably. "Make it go'way."
"Doesn't work that way, kiddo," Snow replied. "You gotta ride this out."
Lightning approached from the pathway hidden by the detritus and debris around Oerba. Her eyes narrowed at the two of them. Snow read her face easily. Disappointment there. Anger. Snow pursed his lips, remained silent. Hope was too sick to raise his head. She moved to walk past them, but for a moment her vision turned up where it lingered on the second-floor window of the Oerban's home. Snow stared at her, perplexed by the intensity she directed at the object. Her jaw clenched.
She wadded through the men's kitchen, unimpressed by the disarray. She found a cup and filled it with a bit of the alcoholic concoction Sazh had made, sipped it casually. In their supplies, she retrieved a pack of dried fruit and turned to leave. As she passed Snow he called to her.
"You okay?"
She cast a backward glance over her shoulder and gave a slight nod.
Vanille and Fang appeared in the afternoon without a trace of illness. The hangover the men were battling had lost most of its potency. Yet, they were subdued: a mixture of the aftermath of their indulgence and the futility of their quest. Oerba yielded nothing and was itself nothing, a nowhere land on the fringes of a violent world. While the Steppe was filled with the life on Gran Pulse, Oerba was the dump site of its decay, covered by the fog like an old corpse in a shroud.
The truth of it all became unspeakable but there was no lack of busywork: Taxims and Vampires regularly stalked the Oerban entrance and its streets; Seekers slithered and thumped about in the nooks of the twisted metal city; Centaurions travelled en mass through the roads and invaded the courtyard to raise mischief. By the end of the day, they were all exhausted. Yet, something was amiss.
Fang sat down on the table and scanned the various exhausted faces; Vanille was cooking dinner with a collection of their fresh Centaurion kills. The older Pulsian frowned.
"Where's Lightning?" She asked and the crowd around the table looked from one person to the other wondering how they'd missed it.
"Don't know," Snow replied, bleakness in his face.
"She's been gone since morning," Hope added. His brow furrowed.
She rose from the table and wandered to the window, resting her elbows on the sill. The steps were faint, inaudible if she didn't strain. Lightning turned the corner of the hidden path, limped through the courtyard clutching her stomach and headed into the Pulsians' home, up to the second-floor. Fang's brow furrowed.
"I'll be back," she said, rushed through the kitchen and out the door.
They watched her go with curiosity but did not pursue her, chalked it up to their prejudicial beliefs. She was, after all, a wild Pulse l'Cie. Hysteria was one of her inherent characteristics.
She lunged up the staircase; long legs overtook two steps at a time with ease. Fang spun around the corner of the doorframe. Lightning jerked in surprise.
"Don't you knock?" She scowled. She'd removed her uniform and was standing in her skirt and tank top.
"Sorry," Fang's head ducked. "I saw you in the courtyard. Thought you were hurt."
"I'm fine," she replied curtly.
Fang nodded. "It's nearly nightfall. Where were you?"
Lightning bit her lip to muffle a groan. She sent a Cure spell into the wound at her side. "On the other side of the village searching for clues."
"To what?"
Light's jaw clenched, caught between agony and exasperation. "Our Focus."
The Pulsian's looked up and her vision narrowed, "You are hurt."
She moved toward the soldier and Lightning baulked. "Don't."
Fang was stunned by her rejection, the discomfort evident in her face.
A soft gasp slipped from the soldier's lips as another Cure sealed the gap in her flesh, "This is all a distraction."
Fang stared at her in disbelief.
"There's nothing in Oerba," Light continued.
A spot of resentment seeped into the Oerban's gut, "We're doing all that we can."
"Survival is not enough!"
"Survival is all we know," Fang shouted, glared at her.
"Your idle attitude is what's wasting our time."
"And your recklessness is not helping anyone," Fang stepped forward. Lightning backed away. Heat rolled off of them in waves. "You're supposed to be the one leading us. Instead, you're off getting yourself killed."
"I told you, I'm fine." She spoke through gritted teeth.
"No you aren't," Fang's voice lowered. She paused a moment, cleaned her tone of its irritation. "I think this is all too much for you."
"Nothing is too much for me."
Some of Fang's dissolve withered under the soldier's glower. "Maybe it's fine for Lightning, for that face you put on... but it's going to kill you, Claire."
Without thought, Light balled her hand into a fist and struck her in the jaw, so seething with rage that she could barely speak. "You will never, ever... say that to me again."
The Pulsian wiped her swollen lip; bright blood streaked across the back of her hand. The veins in her neck throbbed with fury, but she suppressed it. Her chest heaved. As she turned to leave, Lightning spoke.
"I'm sorry," her voice trembled. "I didn't mean to... That's not –"
Fang kept her gaze averted and headed down the steps.
Lightning finished sealing her wounds and redressed, stopped briefly to clean the blade of her sword. When she was ready, she headed back out across the courtyard, back into the depths of Oerba in search of prey, blind with anguish and a furious wrath.
OOO
It had been hours; her muscles were getting too stiff to fight. Her body throbbed with the residual ache of past injuries and fresh wounds. A strange, dizzy sensation swallowed her thoughts and her movements; each step was a little less certain than the last; each moment gone by yielded a bit less control. A familiar sinking feeling overwhelmed her and she closed her eyes, rewarded by the relief that flooded her and the anxiety ebbed from her body.
Fireworks set the sky ablaze in blossoms of multicolour sparks, spinning patterns of neon fire. She craned her neck to watch the spectacle pass emptily over her eyes, her mind elsewhere. Her thoughts drowned the noise of the crowd. She repeated the Sergeant's words over and over in her head. Best to mind your own business, he said. Nothing good comes out of meddling. Her stomach turned to acid.
She'd been through the interrogation prisons to release detainees into their care. One prison in particular held only Pulse l'Cie terrorists set aside from various Purges. They had to know what the l'Cie were planning, where and how they'd strike next. They would get it by any means necessary. And when she saw the conditions of the prison, the look of horror in those terrorist vectors that seemed all too human... Best to mind your own business.
A group of street performers sliced through the crowd, brought their musicians and music boxes with them. They formed a circle around her and danced, much to her chagrin. She stiffened as dozens of eyes set themselves upon her. The dancers had masks on their faces: a fox, a devil, a lizard, a pig, and they spun around her, morphing into one another as their speed increased. Light watched the string of masks fall in and out of her vision, making her dizzy.
An announcement sounded from the loudspeaker and the crowd began to cheer. The Primarch appeared on a throne in the sky; a sea of neon holograms lit up the night around him. She hid her distain, kept her expression stoic.
"Come see the Maker's tools!" He yelled to the crowd. Waving his hands in the sky, a cage manifested from a magic portal. Lightning strained to see the creature in it. He opened the hatch and pulled on the leash. The woman fell from the mouth of the cage and hung on the leash like it was a noose. She fought the restraint around her neck, choking. Heavy objects bounced from her flesh, hurled by the incensed crowd. The soldier gasped as she got a clear view of her. Fang's frantic struggle began to slow.
"From pain, Ragnarok is born!" The Primarch shouted.
A sudden weight manifested in her hands, heavy yet familiar. She looked down, saw the dagger Serah had given her resting in her palm. She turned to look back up at the crowd, horror spreading across her face. The crowd had parted, a perfect path formed down the center with Fang hanging at the end of it.
"Do it, Claire," she whirled at the sound of Serah's voice behind her. "Fulfill your Focus."
"Do it for Serah," Snow emerged next to her. He gestured to the rest of the group, "And all of us on Cocoon."
"Fulfill your Focus, Lightning," Hope said. "Or I'll never forgive you. You've made me a murderer."
It was true. The boy had been terrorized into adulthood, just as she had when her parents died. When she was forced to become Serah's sole guardian and caregiver. Being a soldier meant she had always had a target to suffer her misery.
The crowd erupted. Death to Pulse! Pulse is hell!
Dysley perked up from his throne, enraged by her incompetence, "Disembowel her." He pointed his sceptre at Fang.
She walked toward Fang's hanging body, hesitated, turned back to Serah. Everyone eyed her expectantly. She thought she heard a familiar voice in distress but the crowd was too loud for her to be sure, too big for her to see what was wrong. A redhead bobbed up and down in a sea of faces turned inward, directing their attention at the girl in the centre. She heard the shriek again. Just like the interrogation rooms in the prisons. Best to mind your own business, best to mind your own business.
Lightning stood in front of Fang and raised the dagger over her head. The crowd grew in volume; the wave of their chaos crashed at her back. Fang stared at her like a petrified animal at the hands of its abusive owner, torn between an unflinching loyalty and immense, sharp fear. Light swung the dagger.
The noise faded. The blade sliced through the leash and Fang's body plummeted to the ground where it dissolved. The world around her disappeared. The Primarch Dysley floated down from his throne and came close enough for her to see the spittle on his lips, the crust of his eyes. She expected him to kill her for her disobedience. But he smiled.
"Yes," he said. "Just like that."
And his hands reached out and grabbed her neck.
"Lightning!" The voice that came from his lips was not his own. His mouth moved again but the sound was muffled. She had the distinct sensation of falling.
"Lightning!" From the haze. "Wake up!" She recognized that Oerban twang.
Fang held her shoulders and shook her firmly. Lightning groaned. It hurt to move.
Fang scowled at her, "What the hell is wrong with you? Running out here in the dead of night! This is not Bodhum."
She hauled the soldier up by her armpits and forced her to stand. Light was glassy-eyed and distant. Her head pounded. She touched her fingertips to her forehead and tried to cast a Cure spell. Fang kept her from concentrating.
"I never asked you to follow me," she barked.
"I don't believe this," Fang said, "I can hardly believe you!If you die –"
"I can't die," Light growled. "You said so yourself."
"I said: you die if you believe your dead. Even if your body is alive, you'll be trapped in a coma until you turn cie'th."
"So be it."
Fang recoiled, put her hands on her hips as she suppressed her anger. "So that's it then? Abandon us? Abandon Serah?"
She didn't have the strength to endure the constant badgering. She coiled her muscles tightly, fought to keep her balance and hide the limp in her step. It took all of her energy to stifle the urge to strike Fang with her fist. Mercifully, the Pulsian stayed behind her, unwilling to continue bickering. As they journeyed up a road lined with towers of scrap metal, something within the debris moved. Something big. They froze, weapons halfway out of their holsters.
"Get out of here," Fang whispered. Light stayed just behind her shoulder.
"No."
"Are you mad?"
Lightning was mute. It was too costly to forsake her silence.
Again, the scrap metal moved. Fang stood in front of Light, placed a protective arm across her. It paused, studying them as they examined it, sizing them up. At last, the debris exploded as the creature burst through it. Fang pushed Light back, shielding her from the airborne rubble. The Pulsian cursed as the creature came into view. Raktavija.
She gripped Lightning's forearm and tugged, racing away from the deadly mutant. She cast a string of Slow spells to keep the creature back. They had no effect. Light struggled to keep her legs moving; pain raced like fire up her legs and across her gut. Left and then right into the serpentine roads, over a fallen machine, over again at mess of metal detritus beneath them. Under a fallen crane. Faster, faster. Fang yanked on her arm. She yelped at the sudden flash of agony.
There were cuts on her calves from the sharp metal fragments that cut her as she fled. She cast Cure in vain. The aching refused to vanish. She tumbled to the ground, crashed hard on her shredded knees and the gravel lodged itself in her wounds. Fang spun around to help her up. The Raktavija was gaining.
She dragged the soldier to her feet, shook her to instil some sliver of awareness.
"Send a signal into the air," Fang shouted. "Use your Firaga."
The Pulsian readied her bladed staff and gathered her strength. She formed a Steelguard around her body, caught the attention of the mutant with Provoke.
Lightning amassed all the strength she had left and raised her arms above her head. Her fingertips took on a ruddy glow and anguish overwhelmed her body. The flames ripped up through her back, tore at the fibrous flesh of her muscles and surged into the sky. The fireball burst and cascaded down in a red-orange rain.
A Multicast knocked Fang to her knees. She retched, bewildered by the flood of faintness and pain at once. But she forced herself up –her legs trembling –and formed the Steelguard protection-field over her body once more.
The soldier sent another warning into the night. Each surge of Fire became less potent.
It was the third attempt that got them. Snow and Sazh came bounding down the street with Vanille and Hope in tow. The Raktavija charged its Multicast and Fang's Steelguard finally dissolved. She staggered to the left, tried desperately to collect her footing. Snow cast Provoke to distract it and the group behind him hid. He used his magic to guard them. The Multicast knocked the wind out of his lungs. The rest of the group surged onward.
Hope and Vanille sent waves of Curaja over the bodies of Light and Fang. The women eased themselves upward, weapons withdrawn to fight.
Fang looked to Hope and Vanille, "Let's chain it up!"
Light, Hope, Vanille and Sazh took on the brunt of the magic attacks. Fang and Snow formed a wall of Steelguards in front of them. When the Multicast struck, Vanille switched to white magic and healed the two human shields. The process repeated until a honey-glow erupted from the Raktavija's mechanical body and the inertia force-field around it finally fell.
Fang exploded into a rage, sent the mutant into the air with her staff, stabbed it with all the might of her frustration. As it fell back down to the earth, still griped onto life, it seemed to hover for just a moment. The Pulsian was frozen there with it, stuck in a petrified limbo. The group eyed one another, unsure of what had transpired between them.
A white cloud detonated in the sky, sent the Raktavija careening backward off the far pier and into the ocean. Fang landed in a pit of scrap metal. Vanille dashed over to the landing site, Lightning at her heels. Both women grabbed Fang's arms and pulled her upward. The Pulsian shrunk away from them.
"It's gone, Fang," the young girl said, brushing her shoulder on approach.
"We got lucky," the soldier added.
"No," Fang said. She'd bunched her sari up around her waist and held it there. Her face slowly drained of colour. "No, definitely not."
Lightning stooped in front of the Pulsian, brushed the dark bangs from her eyes. A cold sweat bubbled along her olive skin. "What's wrong?" No response. She grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Fang?"
That's when she noticed it: the sari at her middle soaked with the deep violet stains of blood; the crimson saturated the fabric and streamed down her fingers. Her breath was short. A hand shot out to anchor her body on Lightning's frame; she seized Light's jacket in a fist.
"The pain is coming," Fang muttered. Her body sagged to the ground.
Lightning gently deposited her on the pavement, called for Hope. Vanille had already knelt beside the body, caressing Fang's face, sending Curasa through her veins. Light pulled back the bundled sari and the sight of what was beneath stole her breath away. Dysley's voice cut into her consciousness: Disembowel her, disembowel her! The soldier's hands shook violently, Vanille screamed when she saw it.
The others came running and were equally paralysed by it. In the moment of shock that hushed them, Fang grabbed fistfuls of dust and her bloodcurdling scream roared into the night. The pain hit perforce. Tears escaped down the corners of her eyes. Vanille was frozen. She'd never heard Fang cry like that.
The soldier clenched her jaw and forced herself into the present. There was no time for emotion, no time. She had to be objective. She ran her hands over the fleshy guts exposed to the night air, rubbed a Cure into them. No effect. Fang's howls were as loud as before. The flesh remained a red soupy mess of organs in pieces.
"Hope cast Curasa," she ordered.
The boy was still, his bottom lip trembling. She called his name. Nothing. Her temper boiled. She slapped him across the face with her open palm.
"Cast Curasa on her now!"
The boy dropped to his knees and placed his hands on the Pulsian's chest, careful to avoid the gaping torso. A flood of Curasa entered Fang's body. Lightning bit her lip and stuck her hand into the warm flesh, sifted through dark, stringy veins and obliterated muscle tissues. She bit back a wave of nausea and her tremulous hands made her search difficult.
The flesh of the intestine was frayed at the top; a thin slice had separated it from the stomach. She scoured the crimson liquid for the opening, past the bile ducts, past the pancreas. Her knowledge of anatomy was feeble at best. Liquid welled in her eyes. The fear was unbearable.
"You need a surgeon," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not... I can't..."
Fang couldn't hear her. The agony blocked out all other senses.
"Light," Vanille said, her voice broken by sobs. "Please."
The soldier looked back into the abysmal wound, measured her breathing, fought to steady her hands. She'd found the opening at the stomach and the end of the intestine that had been severed. It could be reattached. She groped inside gingerly for the slippery tube of flesh, pinched it between her thumb and forefinger and placed it next to the opening. She sent a wave of Cure into the skin, stroked her thumb over it back and forth until the flesh was sealed.
"Keep giving her healing magic," she said. Hope and Vanille nodded, unable to look at the open cavity.
Lightning continued to feel around and she contacted something hard, foreign and detached from anything around it. She was cautious as she lifted the folds of skin, revealed the object nestled in the spongy flesh of the bowels: shrapnel. Half of it was lodged into the flesh. Her hands trembled anew, fingers sliding on the metal tip, unable to grasp it. She dug her fingers into the tissue around its edges, widened the wound until she could grasp it firmly. She began to pull.
Fang unleashed a scream from deep within her chest. Vanille scooped up one of her hands and squeezed it in a fist. She bent her head to Fang's ear, tried to bring her some level of comfort. She kissed her clammy forehead, sent more magic into her body.
"Lightning?" The soldier heard Snow's tremulous voice over her shoulder.
"Not now!" She shouted, the piece of shrapnel halfway out.
"It's coming back," he said.
She peered over her shoulder to see the Raktavija advancing in the darkness, the same one they'd fought moments ago. She steadied her hands, kept pulling on the piece of metal.
It wrenched free. A jet of blood oozed from the hole where the shrapnel had been. She covered it with her palm and cast Cure until it stopped. Fang had gone silent. She turned to Hope and Vanille.
"Put your hands here," she said, gesturing toward the open wound.
"No," Hope said softly, refusing to glance at it.
"She'll die if you don't," the soldier said curtly. "Don't look at it, only look at me."
The boy obeyed and she took his hands, placing them over the chilled flesh. He winced as his hands made contact with the open wound. She spoke to him.
"Don't think about it. Both of you, cast Curasa. As much as you can."
Lightning watched the wound glow bright blue-green and the edges of the flesh fizzled as new skin cells were forced into replication, one after another in the billions, seconds passing as the muscle fibres reconnected, as the layers of skin overtop formed and closed the wound shut. Once it was closed she stood, blood stained up to her elbows and removed her gunblade.
"Snow, take her back to the house and take Vanille and Hope with you," she said. "Tell them to keep a steady Cure on her."
Snow nodded and proceeded to gather Fang in his arms. Hope and Vanille, still trembling from the ordeal, followed behind him.
Light stepped beside Sazh, ready rip the Raktavija apart.
"Get out of here, Sazh."
"No fuckin' way," he loaded a clip into one of his guns.
"I gave you an order," she glared at him.
"That woman almost died trying to protect your ass," he said curtly, "I'll be damned if I let all that be in vain."
She amassed her strength, readied her weapon.
The Raktavija charged them, barely alive. Fang had done their work for them. Sazh buried two clips into its metal hull while Light lit it up with Thundaga. Just as quickly as it came, it was dead. She stood over the smouldering carcass, the heaps of copper wire and flashes of sparks. What psychopath designed it? Her hands shook, the lasting effect of her macerated nerves. Flames rained from her palms and set the Raktavija ablaze.
Her face was cast in the red glow of the fire, "Burn in hell."
When she broke through the threshold of the door, the air was thick with the scent of blood, the static of Cure spells. Everything appeared evermore paralysed, evermore rotten. Up the landing, Hope sat on the staircase, his head in his hands, his face red and puffy from crying. She swallowed hard, took the last few steps to the top.
Fang was laid out on the bed, Vanille's head rested over her chest, her hand where the large open wound had been, glowing with Cure. Light approached the bed and Vanille rose, her own cheeks stained with tears. The soldier pulled a chair across from the fair redhead. They sat in silence, stared at Fang's pale face.
"She's not responding," Vanille said softly. "She's alive, but..."
"Give it time," Lightning's voice cracked. She took a moment to recover. "You're going to be exhausted if you continue to Cure her like that."
Vanille hesitated. The glow beneath her fingers stopped. Lightning ran her tongue along her bottom lip, lost in thought.
"It's not your fault," the young girl whispered. Light blanched. Was she so transparent?
The soldier ran a hand through her hair, her eyes welled with water. Stubborn tears that stayed in place. She reached for Vanille's hand and covered it with her own. The Oerban girl offered her a weak half-smile and pressed her cheek into Fang's shoulder.
Silence engulfed them all and with it, the rest of the Oerban town. There was no invading cie'th, no mutants gathered in the night. Everything ceased, even time, tyrannical and invariant as it was had disappeared and lost all meaning. All of the things that governed them before: work, play, politics had turned to nothing, all charades and childish games. At once, something was made real to them, the immortal l'Cie to which death was impossible.
In the night, Fang stopped breathing. They all fought to bring her back, caught in the grip of panic, fear and exhaustion. She showed no improvement, slipped between the living and the dead, trapped in a world behind her eyes. Mercifully, she stabilized and continued to breathe. Light and Vanille remained anchored at her side.
Death was real again. Too real.
TBC...