A/N: Here is Chapter 6! Happy Hunger Games! (Rosewing-chan made me say that)
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters except my own. Final Fantasy XIII belongs to Square Enix.
Star's POV
Dark. Completely dark. Nothing around me, just empty space and darkness. My head is hazy and I am starting to see vivid images. I can't tell what it is, wait I do. I see a beast, a floating world that is crumbling down. I see a crystal pillar. I blanked out.
Normal POV
The group awoke up in an icy subterranean environment. After Anima branded them with the I'Cie mark, it warped them to a different place on Cocoon, a place known as Lake Bresha. Now to group continues their quest as I'Cie, the enemy of Cocoon.
Star's POV
Everywhere we looked, all we saw were mounds and structures of ice. I spotted the other half of the Pulse train after the annihilator chopped the train in half, one staying up in Hanging Edge, the other ending up in here. Everyone was on edge only because we were all strangers toward each other, one knowing a little to no information of the other. I started sensing the tension in the air and it's making me nervous.
"AARGH" Hope, being a bigger brat than I am when I get prissy started blaming everyone for our troubles."It's all your fault!" He shouted at Snow, clearly voicing his opinion and venting his frustration. "If it weren't for you and Serah, this wouldn't have happened!" Snow, hearing Serah's name being mentioned became agitated and aggressively advanced upon the boy. "Don't you DARE blame everything on her!" He easily scared the kid as he backed up away from the advancing man. "Stay away from me, I didn't ASK to be here in the first place." Hope held his head with his hand as he whimpered slightly. Snow sighed, deciding to take pity on the boy as Vanille went into comfort mode. "Ok enough, lets put our differences and problems aside and figure out what we need to do." Sazh, being the older one spoke up. Normally the man didn't like any bickering whatsoever, it gave him a headache. "Now what I want to know is, did any of you get this weird dream like vision?"
Now we were all pondering his question. "I think I saw the dream you described." I piped up. Everyone looked at me as I continued. "It was a little vivid and grainy but I saw this monster, huge and big. Then this floating world was about to collapse and the last thing I saw was a tall pillar structure holding it back up. That was it." Everyone went back into their thinking stage then one by one they nodded, agreeing that they too had the same dream. "Looks like everyone has the same Focus, since we shared the same dream." Lightning stated, her eyes moving back and forth as she continued thinking. "Hey guys," Hope said sounding urgent as he held his left hand, "I have this weird brand on my wrist." He showed it to us then we all examined ourselves. Snow has it on his left arm, Vanille on the upper left thigh, Lightning on the left side of her chest just above her heart, Sazh has it in the middle of his chest. I unfortunately didn't find mine until I decided to change into wolf form and Lightning helped me locate it on my back. It's so annoying when you can't see it, I was practically moving around in circles just to see it for myself but I couldn't so I gave up and reverted back into human form.
"As I suspected, we have been branded. We are no longer I'Cie, we are Pulse I'Cie, branded and given a focus to complete." Silent was met as we all fell into deep thinking. That didn't last long as a group of PSICOM soldiers barged into the scene with their guns pointed at us. "Put your hands up to where we can see them."
"Tch" Lightning scowled irritably as we all complied, slowly putting our hands behind our heads. "You guys deportees from the Purge train?" "Maybe." Lightning answered looking as if she didn't give a thing about what the guy was talking about. "What was that? Do you care to repeat that huh?" The captain moved up, thinking he was a bad ass dude and pointed the gun closer to her face. Oh boy not a smart plan.
"Nice gun," Lightning said in her sweet and sexy voice before she executed a flashy hand-to-hand combat sequence that sent the man flying back to his troops. "What the?" The troops were startled at their captains quick defeat then started firing at us. Seeing there was no way out of this, I was already in wolf form and quickly joined in the fray as Lightning was on the move, cutting down opponent one after the other. Reinforcement arrived and I quickly took care of them with 'Flaming Star' since they weren't "fire proof ready" HA. Lightning and I made a great team, the others stayed way out of our attack range as they watched the havoc we're causing. Soon PSICOM bodies and machinery littered the ground as Lightning and I returned to the others. "You know Star?" She looked at me a tiny bit and saw that I was licking a wound on my hand. She sighed and I met her gaze as she used a cure spell to heal it. "You and I make a great team so how about being battle partners for a bit? Just in battle, nothing else." I pondered my options then I replied, "Sure, why not." We smiled for a very brief moment before it had to be ruined by Snow.
"Hey if you two aren't busy chatting and laughing, lets move already. We have a lot to cover and a world to save" Oh boy, Lightning does NOT take orders from anyone else, ESPECIALLY not Snow. My face said all when Sazh, Vanille and Hope all evacuated and left Snow defenseless as Lightning decided to bully Snow with her fists, which hurts like crazy. After Lightning was done punishing him, we were on our way with Vanille trailing behind to help Snow with his wounds, which looked deadly serious. After a couple miles I stopped walking as I detected some faint scent in the air. Detaching myself from the group, I ran up ahead, zigzagging around items and fallen debris following the scent. Lightning and the others race after my bounding form across the field. Finally I stopped at the foot of Serah's crystal statue, which fell down after us and embedded itself in other crystal beds. The others stared wide-eyed at it then abruptly Lightning said her goodbyes to her sister and turned on her heels and refused to look back. This sparked another fight between Snow and Lightning and we watched them go at it again, sighing because Snow's an idiot for picking yet another fight he couldn't win.
In the end, Snow decided to stay behind and try to free Serah from her bed of crystals and the rest of us moved on with Light and we left Lake Bresha behind and ended up in some old ruins. "Keep your eyes peeled and stick to the group." That last part was aimed at Vanille who wondered up ahead. She giggled and turned back to answer, "Oh its ok, lighten up!" Lightning just huffs in annoyance. Vanille didn't get far though because she was soon chased by a Garuda Interceptor which was this wing dragon creature that can breathe fire. We heard her scream than saw her running toward us with her predator close behind her. "God damn it Vanille!" Lightning swore as she charged at the monster. That fight didn't last long, with Sazh, Lightning and I using our combined strength.
"Well now, what did we learn today?" Lightning asked, her voice full of sarcasm as she looked at Vanille who chuckled nervously with embarrassment. We soon left the ruins and found ourselves an old airship. Sazh was our navigation air-pilot back in the days so he was put to charge of flying the thing. We were just cruising along and listened to the Sanctum's speech along the way. Lightning scoffed as she listened to his speech, clearly disgusted.
"What kind of a person would be so gullible as to believe in this rubbish?" I looked at her and smiled mischievously. "Why...Snow's personality definitely fits that description!" The whole ship roared with laughter. "Nice one kid." Sazh chuckled as Vanille wiped away a tear. Lightning patted my head, faintly smiling while Hope had a huge grin on his face. Our moment didn't last long for this foreign airships started shooting at us. Sazh gritted his teeth as he navigated through the beams of lasers. "Give me that." Lightning reached over the controls and started pressing the shooting-lasers-back button, hitting the target completely. "You did it!" Vanille exclaimed as we burst through the clouds, with PSICOM ships racing after us. "Go through there" Lightning pointed up to a big floating fal'Cie, it's tentacles of electricity dares anyone to get close to it. "Are you crazy?" Sazh looks back at her terrified, "We'll be fried!" "At least we'll lose the other ships." Lightning retorted. Sazh just shook his head as he dodged the best he could. Our predators tried to follow our trail, resulting in two being destroyed.
"Ha what losers." Vanille commented but then our tail got hit. Wrestling with the controls, Sazh brought the ship down beneath the clouds, a trail of smoke trailing after us. Back on the enemy ship, a man with silver hair in a ponytail watched the trail of smoke. "Sir," a PSICOM soldier approached the man then gave him a solute. "The enemy has gone out of range of our sight, I have sent scavengers to follow them." The man nodded in approval than continued to look out the window and the soldier hurried away, his eyes narrowing in thought.
Down upon the earth, our ship left a deep gouge with smoke still rising. We got out, all woozy and dizzy but still in one piece. "Oh my poor baby!" Sazh managed to bond with that ship but we couldn't stay long for the scavenger ships roared overhead. "Move out." Lightning issued the command and we were bolting across and blended into the mountain area with the scavengers zoomed overhead.
A/N: Done. If anything does not make sense, please ask me. I will answer anything, but no spoilers. It will make sense in later chapters. Please Review!
