Small warning in this chapter for a scene evocative of police/military brutality.
If you need to skip it, search "loud whining" when you get to the part where a young man stumbles.

It's probably not that bad? But better safe than sorry.


The story so far:

While wandering Bodhum, Nora makes the acquaintance of Sazh and his chocobo chick. Meanwhile, Lightning learns that the others have been trapped on the Vestige, but she can't go after them: the Security Regiment's preparations are well underway. The people of Bodhum will make their escape from the government that has condemned them.


XIII


The morning of the Purge dawned bright and warm, as it had the last time around. Lightning thought it might almost be insulting - on second thought, the fal'Cie controlled the weather, so it was definitely insulting that it was so nice out, given what the Primarch planned for Bodhum later in the day.

She had a severe sense of deja vu, at first, waking in the morning and gearing up. But there were differences. She left earlier, but the streets were a little less quiet; no atmosphere of despair had taken root. In her memories, the town had breathed dread. Then, too, the last time she hadn't had Torreno with her. Luckily Torreno wasn't a morning person, which was probably the only reason she hadn't tried to fit in some teasing before the operation started.

True to her memory, there were six trains at the station. Prepared in advance by PSICom, they sat one behind the other. Five cars each, a maximum capacity of about a thousand people per train - they'd be nowhere near that maximum, though. Bodhum was small, and PSICom wanted everyone seated.

Another difference - this time, Lighting would be on the first train instead of the last.

Lightning and Torreno reached the front of the line, where a pair of PSICom agents stood holding distastefully large guns. One of them made a vaguely familiar crack about the Guardian Corps, which Torreno ignored but for a small sneer. They were directed one by one to don Penitent's Robes, their arms shackled in the sleeves, and then another pair of agents escorted them to a seat on the train.

They worked it all out the day before. The BSR would be split, a pair to each train. That left one person extra, but Ray would stick with the rookies Kendrick and Bellinger. In her past, the fighting was well underway by the time the last train reached the Hanging Edge. It would be their job to prevent that this time.

Filled to capacity, the doors closed and the train shuddered into movement. A PSICom guard paced the length of their car - pacing, another example of PSICom's general lack of experience, competence, and common sense - but this time Lightning wouldn't be capitalizing on the mistake.

Well. Not too much. While his circuit of the car had him faced the other way, she twisted the magnetic lockpick hidden in her glove. Her manacles clicked open, but she kept her sleeves together for now. Across the way, Torreno gave a surreptitious thumbs up and then did the same.

The view out the windows was incongruously beautiful. Even with the BSR's work the day before, the mood inside the train was strained. But outside was a wide stretch of blue water, and then a lush green headland.

Of course, the presence of a hostile PSICom agent with a gun kept everyone in the car facing the floor rather than the landscape, but Lightning let herself enjoy the quality of light coming through the windows, at least.

The light changed when the tracks ran down the side of a steep canyon, and again as they went through a tunnel and entered into the Hanging Edge.

The train came to a calm stop, a contrast to the bad memories playing on loop in the back of Lightning's head. She had fought for more than half of her life, but the battle at the Hanging Edge - humans firing on each other, soldiers slaughtering outgunned civilians - that had been a special kind of unpleasant. Lightning carefully tucked those thoughts away, and stood when directed.

The people of Bodhum formed a slow, shuffling mob shaped vaguely like a line, Lightning and Torreno subtly making their way to the front of it. The PSICom agents from the train didn't escort them; there were different agents for that, and pockets standing guard along the length of the hanging walkway.

"Where're the ships?" Torreno asked under her breath.

Lightning shook her head slightly. Nearby. God, hopefully nearby, or on the way. But there was still time.

In the gap between one set of guards and the next, Lightning and Torreno stopped pretending manacled arms and pulled back their hoods. This, too, was part of the plan. It was a small thing, but they hoped the BSR pair visible at the head of each group would help keep everyone calm. The new set of PSICom guards, meanwhile, would assume the last set unshackled them deliberately.

PSICom was that kind of group; communication was poor, and anyone who admitted any ignorance or failure was bound to suffer for it sooner or later. Usually sooner. It was a culture that PSICom's instructors felt produced superior agents, and perhaps it did - but members of the Guardian Corps all over Cocoon agreed it made for laughably bad soldiers.

This was clearly apparent in the way they'd set up the guards. A single agent for each train car, a pair on each of the platforms, and now: a single squad of six, to escort over three hundred people. Considering the comparatively massive manpower PSICom actually had at its disposal… it was a decision that made a lot more sense as a deliberate trap. A mob could overpower a single squad, and then Jihl Nabaat and Primarch Dysley would have their excuse and justification in one to turn the Purge into a massacre.

These agents wouldn't know that - after all, they were intended as the sacrificial lambs for that little plan. But they didn't question the situation. And they'd clustered at the front of the line, instead of spreading out to chivvy the crowd into keeping an orderly pace.

The walkway was long and straight. They marched quietly and nothing much happened. The end of the walkway was still a ways off, the Edge proper was even further, and the tension of the crowd was thick. And then, after a quarter hour or so, the guards grew bored. Grew impatient. Uncomfortable, even.

Lightning doubted their briefing had spent much time on what they ought to do with cooperative prisoners.

So when a young man a little ways back from the front stumbled on the too-long hem of his robe, the two PSICom escorts positioned furthest back jumped on the opportunity. The kid picked himself up as fast as he could, but then a PSICom agent was there to knock him back down again with the butt of his gun. The woman next to him let out an indignant cry, but her neighbors hemmed her in with their bound arms.

"Trying to resist, huh?" He said, a voice with affected gruffness echoing a little through the mask. "Thought you could duck out?"

His accomplice spoke up. "Maybe he's a traitor for Pulse." He got in the kid's scared face. "Is that it? You trying to sabotage our work, brat?"

"Shit." Said Torreno. She and Lightning exchanged a look and started moving through the crowd.

Now the other four guards had stopped and turned to watch. The one at the front - that one had the highest rank insignia, though Lightning had forgotten what specific rank is signified - looked by their posture to be deeply unimpressed, but didn't move to intervene. Another strike against PSICom, when commanders took no responsibility for their team's conduct. The agent next to the commander was watching the crowd instead, a wary set in the way they held their weapon.

"It was an accident," the kid protested, panicked. "I'm sorry, I'm going, I'm going- ah!"

The first agent cuffed him again. Oh shit, that was Amodar's nephew. That meant the woman was-

"You sons of bitches! You cowards!" Amodar's sister was pushing past the neighbors who'd tried to restrain her. "Leave my boy alone, you- you flans!"

They both bristled, turning away from the boy in favor of his mother. Hands still bound in her sleeves, she did her best to punch the one who struck her son. He dodged, and she was restrained by the other.

"That's assault on an agent of Eden." The gruff-voiced one said darkly. The crowd now held its collective breath, perched on the precipice of action. Heavily, he hauled back the butt of his weapon, aiming to strike her in the face-

And Torreno pushed her way through just ahead of Lightning, grabbing the gun before he could strike.

"You don't wanna do that." She said it with cold civility, but her eyes held bloody intent. The agent was stunned into stillness, and Lightning took the moment to check the position of the rest of the agents. The one who'd been watching the crowd was hefting their gun. An angry civilian woman was one thing. An angry soldier was a rallying point.

Lightning positioned herself at Torreno's back, facing the other agents. Her hand drifted to the quick-release on her Pocket.

The gruff-voiced PSICom agent took a loud breath, and-

A whining cut through the air and the tension. Lightning looked up. A massive ship passed overhead, not a troop ship, but an old cargo hauler. From the sound of the engines, it was on its last legs. But if it would fit everyone, it would be worth the bumpy ride.

There was another slightly smaller cargo ship a thousand yards or so behind. It was in considerably better shape than the first, but it still looked well-used. The way the light glinted off the side indicated a row of windows; this one actually had a small passenger deck. Both ships were painted with Cavalry identification - probably they came from its small supply fleet.

Ungently, Torreno released her grip on the PSICom agent's weapon. She drew herself up, and with an air of command that Lightning envied a bit, she said, "You're wasting time, soldier. We have places to be."

Oh, that brought all their hackles up, she could tell that even with their masks. The agent holding Amodar's sister released her and moved to retort, but Lightning cut in. "You all have your orders," she called out. "The people of Bodhum are to be escorted off Cocoon. Fulfill them."

The others looked uncertain, but when the commander backed down, the others followed suit. Huh. The commander had a little influence after all.

The path branched off to the left a hundred meters or so ahead. At the end of that little branch was a wide plaza; the two ships settled in a hover along its edge and put out ramps. Something inside of Lightning unclenched. There. They had their escape route.

She didn't let her hope show on her face. Instead, she swept a level look across the squad of PSICom agents, turned on her heel, and kept walking.

"Keep moving, everyone!" Torreno shouted to the crowd. A moment later, she settled into Lightning's pace. The PSICom escort had bunched up along one side of the column. Torreno glanced at them and spoke to Lightning out of the corner of her mouth. "They're cliquish little things, aren't they?"

"It's good for us," Lightning replied. "If they'd been spread along the line from the start, if they'd picked a fight further back-"

Torreno snorted. "I don't wanna think about it. But hey, their shit training is our good luck."

Lightning tilted her head in agreement.

The front of the line reached the plaza without further incident. The crowd was disorganized, though, and it'd take longer for the back of the line to catch up. The PSICom squad did a little huddle, then arranged themselves to bracket each of the ramps. The two troublemakers, she noticed, had been positioned firmly in arm's reach of the commander.

Up close, they could see the ships' designations painted on the sides in tall white letters. The larger one was called the Albrook, the smaller was the Leuda.

Torreno set her hands on her hips, appraising them both. "Should we load the big one first, do ya think?"

Lightning hummed quietly. "The Leuda. We can fill that passenger deck before it gets too crowded, and if we're in a hurry at the end, the Albrook won't have as much danger of a crush."

Torreno cocked her head to the side, then nodded. She turned and addressed the crowd. "Alright all," she shouted. "Head up the ramp to your left, go upstairs, and go all the way to the back before you take a seat. Fill those gaps!"

The crowd kept moving, and as the ship slowly swallowed it up, Lightning allowed the small bud of hope and relief in her chest bloom a little more.

XIII

Serah's brand was hurting again.

It had burned constantly at first, then settled into throbbing dully for the last week, or stinging sharply whenever she thought about it too much. But yesterday, she had barely felt it at all.

Now, though, she could feel the proximity of the fal'Cie who branded her, and the stabbing pains were back. It had kept her awake since their close escape. In fact- she bit back a hiss and gripped her arm.

They had a campfire on the floor, because Hope was some kind of crazy prepared weirdo who kept food and water and bundles of wood on his person (in his AMP Pocket, specifically) at all times. Across the fire, Hope looked up sharply. "How is it?"

She bit her lip. "It's not so bad." Snow shifted closer, and Serah smiled up at him. "Really. It only hurts a little."

From Hope's answering expression, Serah thought perhaps she'd been less than persuasive.

He approached her and knelt down. "Let me see it."

"Hey, don't be so pushy!" Snow protested.

"We have to know how far it's progressed," Hope replied impatiently. To Serah, he continued more softly. "I only need to look at your arm."

Serah laid a hand on Snow's. "It's fine, Snow." She unwound the bandages over the brand and turned the shoulder towards Hope. "It keeps changing. I… try not to look at it, though." It feels like a doomsday clock, she didn't say.

Hope hummed softly, fingers brushing over her arm. Then he smiled. "That's a relief," he said.

What? "How?" Serah asked, her expression plaintive.

His thumb dragged across the brand, numb and stinging at once. "Here," he explained. "In the middle. The eye has started to open, but only just." He let go of her arm, nodded at Snow, and moved back. "If you keep moving forward, and don't fall to despair, we'll have-" he stopped himself, then continued. "Well, suffice to say there's plenty of time yet to find a long-term solution." He smiled sheepishly. "Just, uh. Don't panic or anything." He muttered something under his breath about experience, but Serah couldn't make it out.

"Anyway," Hope put his hands to his knees and stood. "Speaking of long-term solutions, the Vestige is a good place to start looking. And since we're stuck here anyway for the time being..." He turned to Vanille. "Would you like to investigate with me?"

Vanille. The girl from the beach. Serah felt like they had become close, in that unique way that only perfect strangers could be. But ever since they'd met again, she'd been so very quiet. After they landed in the Vestige - well, crashed, really - she sat with her face in her knees, taking turns shooting glances at Serah and Hope.

When Hope addressed her, Vanille gathered herself visibly. She hopped up and stretched. "Sure!" She said with brightness Serah could tell was deliberate. "Where should we start?"

"Why don't we wander until something catches our eye?"

"Sounds good!" Vanille agreed. She waved back at Snow and Serah. "Then, later!"

She skipped ahead and up a set of stairs before Serah could decide whether to ask to come along, and Hope followed.

XIII

The room where they'd crashed was cavernous, hundreds of meters tall with impossible architecture almost hanging haphazardly within the open space.

"What is this chamber called?" Hope asked once they were out of earshot.

"This is the House of Stairs," Vanille answered softly. "The main room, sort of. You can reach most of the other rooms through here."

Hope nodded. "Are there any that serve as a library, or a history?" He waggled a hand. "Something like priests' records, maybe?"

Vanille tapped a finger to her chin. "This way, I think?" She pointed at a little balcony against the distant wall. "We can catch platform from just over here." She lead the way, and Hope followed. "Why do you want to see it?"

"There are a lot of reasons." Hope said. "I never had the opportunity to learn much about Oerba's beliefs, so I'm curious. And the fal'Cie Anima marked you and Serah as l'Cie. Under the circumstances, it's prudent to learn as much as we can."

"Wait, so are you from Oerba or aren't you?" Vanille asked.

"I was born on Cocoon," he replied. "Though I've lived on Gran Pulse since I was fourteen."

"In Oerba?"

He hesitated. "Well, no. Oerba isn't… I was named family by some precious friends who came from Oerba." His eyes gazed unfocused at something Vanille couldn't see. "After they- died, I remembered some things they'd said about the way things used to be, there, and I picked that name for myself. To keep them close, you know? Though I didn't start using it until recently."

"It's gone, isn't it." Vanille's voice was flat.

Hope's eyes were soft. "I'm sorry."

Her hands had curled into fists. She relaxed them. "It's fine." She said lightly. "I, I was expecting that. It's been so- so long, after all, I-"

Courteously, Hope didn't comment on the breaks in her voice, her hitching breath. Instead, he spoke. "So the Huei clan, they were engineers. From Paddra, though, not Oerba. Did Oerba have a clan like that too?"

"What?" Vanille cleared her throat. "Oh, yes. When something in Oerba needed fixing, you fetched a Nadi clansman to do it. Well, the last I saw of Tavi and Yanafer they were just making war machines…"

Hope pressed past her wistful reminiscence. "I'm an engineer myself. More than anything, anyway."

Vanille took the out he'd provided. "Then you wear the name well!"

"Thank you."

They subsided into silence and made their way to the records room. The elevator platform glided smoothly across the empty space. When they alighted on the records-room's little balcony, the heavy door in the wall lifted open.

"I've never been allowed in here," Vanille confessed. "Only the priest was, and his initiates, if Anima decreed it."

Like all the other rooms in the Vestige that Vanille had seen, the records room was large and open. It was circular, its walls ornamented in industrial patterns and bright metals, the lighting cleverly hidden so it seemed to come from nowhere. This room seemed untouched by time. There was a large table in its center with a handful of heavily constructed metal chairs, and two rings of freestanding shelves circled the room.

Hope approached the nearest shelf, eyes running over the assortment of books, scrolls, tablets, and projectors. His hands he kept at his sides for now.

"What sort of records were kept here?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. All of Oerba's birth and marriage records were kept by the initiates, but the rest of it was a secret. Sacred to Anima and Pulse, you know? We only knew what the priest told us in sermons."

"Hmm." Hope met her eyes briefly. "Are you comfortable going through these?"

Vanille thought about it for a moment, then snickered. "The priest was a nasty old man, anyway. So was his replacement. Their sacred secrets can stuff it."

"All right, then where should we start?"

A very good question. She started a circuit of the room, examining the contents of the shelves. There was no real hint as to their contents - there probably was some kind of organizational system, but they'd have to start reading to find it.

Across the room, Hope spoke up. "This one's a lot fuller than the others."

He was stood in front of a unit whose arm level shelf was overflowing with pin-bound books with carved and painted wooden covers.

"Oh," Vanille crossed the room. "I recognize those. Those are the family records, I mentioned them before." She ran her fingers across the spines, starting at one end. "I don't see the latest one- well, it *was* the latest one, before Fang and I left."

Hope nodded consideringly. "And after you left, the Vestige ended up on Cocoon, too."

"I guess the priest usually kept the current volume with him."

Hope pulled out the one at the end of the row and opened it. "This is beautiful," he commented. It was. He'd opened to the biography section. The pages were parchment, and each individual had a page to themselves. Their name and birth, their parents, and below that their milestones like coming-of-age and profession and marriage. It also listed major accomplishments. Some people had more of those than others, enough for extra pages, even. Finally it listed a person's children, and their death date once it was applicable.

There was another section for family trees and notable clan events, and a section for legal disputes and their resolutions, and another for records of weather and harvests and other things that concerned the whole village. But the clan pages and biography pages were hand illuminated. They were beautiful.

Each of these books represented the record-keeping of a generation or more. A perfect history of her people. Vanille cleared her throat. "I'd like to hold on to these," she said softly.

Hope gave her another look - she'd noticed that about him, he was capable of such calm, serious expressions, it was very affecting - and he carefully closed the book in his hands. "That sounds like a very good idea," he said softly. "How's your AMP Pocket?"

Well, she had one. She had a credit chip she and Fang had ah- acquired, before they split up. Afterwards, when she'd figured out where people kept stowing things, she bought one for herself. But…

"I'm not sure they'll fit."

Hope cocked his head. "May I have a look?"

Vanille unpinned the little device from where she had it fastened between her skirt and her fur mantle. She handed it to Hope, who took it delicately and examined the marks on its side.

"It's Mog brand," he said, after a moment. "A good middle-of-the-road model. One like this should hold about a hundred and twenty pounds. How much have you got in there?"

Vanille shrugged. "Barely anything. My binding rod, food. Some monster parts."

"It'll use up the better part of the holding capacity, but you can definitely take these."

He handed the Pocket back along with the book he'd been looking at, and Vanille took them delicately. "I will. Thank you." She pressed the book against the AMPP's activation pad, and it disappeared into the Pocket's separate space.

"I'll look around while you pack the rest of those up."

She agreed, and began adding books. "Say," she called out after a moment, "Your pocket thingy, how much does it hold?" She'd seen him use it when they started the fire, it was hooked to the back of his belt. It had a very different look to hers.

"Oh, two tons or so," Hope replied absently.

Isn't that a lot? Vanille wondered.

Hope continued. "Come to think of it, I can pack up whatever won't fit in your AMPP's capacity." Carefully, he picked up a scroll and frowned. "This one is paper. I don't want to open it in an uncontrolled environment, it might just break apart."

Vanille's eyes widened. "That can happen?" She remembered the state of the things left in front of hers and Fang's crystal forms, and flinched away from the next book on the shelf.

"With paper," Hope reassured her quickly. "Parchment and wood holds up better. And Pulse technology is practically indestructible; we can handle the projectors as much as we like." He gently packed away a handful of scrolls, then picked up one such projector that had been lying next to them. "How about this one?"

Vanille joined him at the table. He held out the projector, and she took it, setting its flat side on the table and running her fingers over the ornamented surface. It was shaped like a large egg cut in half, and on its surface- "That's Anima's mark. It's the same one I have."

"So it's religious? What is it about?"

She hummed. "Depends." She smiled, then, feeling intrepid. "Let's find out!" Hope made an agreeing noise, and she took that as permission enough to press the play button tucked into the ornamentation.

The device booted, an indistinct moving image drawn in blue and green light hung in the air above it. It looked like an elaborately-dressed individual making a speech - no, like a dozen different individuals, overlaid on one another. There was a noise like static, and after a moment, halfway through a sentence, it resolved into a chorus of voices.

- AND HALLOWED PULSE HELD TO HIS FATHER'S WISHES,
AND LED FAL'CIE TO AID HIM IN THE CULTIVATION
OF THE MAKER'S GREAT CREATION.
BUT LINDZEI, IN HIS SELFISHNESS,
SHUNNED THE DUTY HE'D BEEN GIVEN,
FORSOOK CREATION.

HE TOOK TO THE SKY AND, SPITEFUL,
TORE AT THE WORKS IN HIS BROTHER'S CHARGE.
SAGE WAS LINDZEI NAMED, BUT ONLY POISON NOW DRIPS FROM HIS LIPS;
LINDZEI PLOTS WITH THE FOOL TO SEE THE END OF EVERYTHING.

THUS IS IT ANIMA'S MISSION TO STAND AGAINST LINDZEI AND HIS SERVANTS,
THUS IS IT OUR HOLY DUTY TO DESTROY LINDZEI IN HIS NEST.

The image froze for a few seconds, then cut out.

"Huh." Hope said after a long pause. "That's interesting."


XIII


FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO, I told you all I had a kajillion action scenes to write. Well, here's one (1). There are a couple more to come in this arc, but expect a much smaller gap between chapters this time because I'm doing a (reduced) NaNo challenge and Time's Heartbeat is the sole beneficiary.

Also, I Am An Adult And I Can Commit To Projects Dammit.

Side note, you may notice a retcon to Bodhum's population. Its population, including visitors, is around 1,800 people, and past me is Dumb and Wrong for saying otherwise. I decided this unilaterally based on the size of my own beachside hometown, and now it is Law.