Draco: Hello, everyone! Hope you had a great Christmas! Me, I'm that gamer nerd who didn't get a single game and still made out like a bandit.
Dissidia Final Fantasy and all related properties © Square Enix.
Phantom Train: Valkyrie Rise
"...I'll have grounds/More relative than this. The play's the thing/Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
Terra was reclining against the window of the Phantom Train, still reading Hamlet with curiousity. She had taken to reading the script's soliloquies out loud, finding the emotion in each session to be very moving. The roar of wheel on tracks around her had faded to white noise as she read, almost content within this captivity.
She paused as she turned to the next act, trying to visualize the scene - which might explain the delay in her reaction before she realized the Phantom Train was starting to slow.
In a shock, she looked around, confused. The book fell to the floor of the train car, forgotten as Terra lifted herself off the ground. With her Esperkin powers, she was able to generate a faint anti-gravitational field around her body - which probably explained why Hamlet ended up following her as she set her hands and legs against the roof. It didn't take long for the Phantom Train to come to a complete stop, and out the window Terra could see what looked like an otherworldly train station.
A moment passed; then the door clicked, sliding open, and a figure stepped into the train car.
She looked absolutely stunning - her body was wrapped in armour that made Terra think Cosmos had prepared to go to war. A plate of platinum crossed her chest, with golden joints to a platinum collar and a pair of silvery-crimson pauldrons. It was joined by what appeared to be two large chain links to a platinum piece around her waist, from which flowed a skirt that looked as though woven of angel feathers. Her greaves and sabatons were forged of platinum and gold, and beneath it all she wore a black bodysuit that bared her shoulders and her thighs. Around her arm was a shield - one of crimson and platinum with an arcane golden sigil upon an onyx background.
Her hair was a soft rose-petal pink, dancing around her face like a voltic storm.
+x+x+x+
Earlier...
Lightning had been fighting for so long, she wasn't quite sure when the scenery began to change.
As the enemies started to thin - the inhuman monsters no more, and the too-real manikins becoming fewer - she realized that she was no longer on the fiery plains of discord. She stood not on fire-burned earth, but rather, her feet nestled upon a thin layer of water, beneath which was a harmonious white surface. She turned back the way she had come - it was far, but she could still see the earth of hell from which she had come.
She blamed her new gear.
From the lifeless bodies of the faux-manikins she had slain, Lightning had crafted for herself armour befitting a warrioress - not completely covering, yet not too revealing. The colour of the armour, she could not explain - as she had crafted, the plates had shifted hue on their own. Even the small half-skirt of feathers had done so - plucked from the wings of an Ultimecia figure in black and beige, the soft feathers had gone from Sorceress shadow to Valkyrie shine. She could not quite explain why she had designed the armour as she had - something had overtaken her as she had forged it, ensuring it did not shame her.
If anyone asked where the undersuit came from, she would aim her weapon at them.
She had not left her weapon be, either. From blades of champions and heroes, soldiers and stalwarts, from staves of despots and spears of dragoons, she had altered the Omega Weapon's figure. It was still a gunblade - she would not attempt a different weapon until absolutely necessary - but in blade form it now much resembled a more traditional two-edged sword, not too unlike that of Cosmos' knight. Shifting it to firearm only pulled either edge back, revealing the barrel of the weapon as the handle angled to fire - a seamless craft that made her Blazefire Saber look old-fashioned in comparison. And just past either edge were letters - letters in a script she was not aware she had known until the writing was there.
She still had her Blazefire Saber. She dared not part with nor alter that.
Taking yet another cue from the Warrior, in her left hand was a shield - a round battle plate befitting a soldier of an ancient legion, with an otherworldly emblem across its surface in gold. Now she saw why the knight always carried with him a sword and shield - a proper defense had much aided her travel through this hell. A blade can only do so much, but a shield stopped most of her opponents' attacks dead-on.
Slowly, she stepped further onto the water's surface that she had approached. As she had started before what Gabranth had called the throne of Chaos, so now she seemed to be approaching Order's Sanctuary. Glancing around for opponents, Lightning found the surface to be much broader than she recalled - normally, she needed take no further than three steps out of the Forsaken Kingdom gateway - one out of the gateway, one to cross the join, one into the Sanctuary - and she would be in sight of Cosmos' throne. But like the plains at the edge of Chaos' madness, so too in hell did Cosmos' sanctuary spread further than it should.
Lightning continued to walk, hoping that she would find Cosmos' throne before long. Silent moments passed before she saw a figure approaching her - another too-real manikin, it appeared. This one was her - though its hair shone silver, and its garments were nearly cast in shadow, the flash was Farron, as she had been when first called to Cosmos' war. With practiced skill, Lightning slowed to a stop, raising the gunblade towards the faux-manikin.
The flash didn't even react.
She raised the weapon slightly, the handle angling as either edge of the weapon pulled back, unsheathing the barrel of her firearm.
Still, her mirror did not respond
Lightning glared at it for a moment, unmoving as it approached; then the sighed irritably, fading the gunblade in a flurry of light. "Well, if you're not going to fight, I'm not going to get in your way," she insisted, stepping past the flash without flinching.
A click, like setting one's finger on a trigger.
The valkyrie spun, raising her shield before her as the flash fired at her. The shot gleamed off, and Lightning's weapon appeared in her hand bladed as she shot forward. Two swipes - one to strike away the weapon, one to stun the flash; then her body roared, her vision edging crimson and gold as she arced into a flurry of gunshots and sword swings.
She landed directly behind the flash, arms outstretched; then she rose tall with her shield before her as the mirror shattered into rose crystals.
Turning around once more, she found herself much closer to her goal than she had thought. One, two, three steps - then she could have come from Forsaken Kingdom, for Cosmos' throne was before her once more.
Her gunblade faded again, and she set the shield onto a hook on her backplate that she had designed solely for that purpose as she approached the throne. The area was quiet, and softly she approached the throne of Cosmos. Feeling incredibly awkward, she turned and sat down upon the throne, gazing around.
"Well, I'm here," she said to no one. "What now?"
She could try setting her weapon to her heart again, but Lightning had no doubt that it would fire before she was freed - and at point-blank range, she wasn't sure her armour would hold up. She held out her hands, thoughts flowing through her mind, and eventually a flurry of rose petals emerged as Odin's arced blades settled joined into her right hand. Curious, she gazed over the Zantetsuken, pondering.
Then she impaled them into the water before her.
"It's not freedom," she protested, "but... I wouldn't exactly call it hell, either."
Another moment passed; then she drew her shield from her back, slipped it onto her arm, and leaned back on the throne, gazing towards the soft white clouds above her.
"So empty..." she admitted. "I can't imagine sitting through a cycle or two like he said he did."
For a moment, she could have sworn she saw Cosmos' knight in the clouds - then the image passed, and she was alone again.
A sigh passed through her lips, and she closed her eyes with a soft sadness.
"You know... I guess I wouldn't mind going back to the war."
Nothing happened for a long while - it had felt like forever since she had been in Orphan's Cradle, where she could close her eyes and relax. But after a moment, she heard something - and she opened her eyes.
The clouds were distant, apart in the sky - but they should have been woven into one another.
The sky was blue behind them - but the Sanctuary's sky should have shone white.
The wind was past her - yet the air was supposed to be still.
In a shock, Lightning opened her eyes.
She was sitting on green grass. Before her, past the joined Zantetsuken, was a wall of stone, a pair of great doors nested in the granite. Behind her, as she turned to check, was a great building crafted of pure crystal. The wind blowing through her hair carried all the innocence of youth.
"The Crystal Tower," Lightning murmured. "I'm... out of that hell? And I'm not in Orphan's Cradle..." She turned to the doors, getting to her feet and prying Zantetsuken out of the earth with her empty hand as she approached them.
A moment passed; then she set her left hand against the crack between the doors, forced her shoulder against the door, and forced it open.
One step out of the Crystal Tower, between the doors.
One step to cross an emptiness, a join between worlds.
One step into a forest, one that she could not quite recognize.
Now Lightning stood in what seemed to be a train station, surrounded by a phantom-black forest. It was a long platform, of white stone that looked nearly otherworldly, next to train tracks of black steel. Benches of black wood were interspersed across the area, and on either end of the platform was a tall black lamppost, burning bright. Curious, Lightning let Zantestuken vanish in a flurry of rose petals and took a seat on one of the benches.
Silence...
Silence...
Then the roar of train on tracks.
Lightning looked to her right to see a large steam-engine train coming down the tracks. It was already coming quite slowly, compared to the speed of a properly moving train, and as she watched, the transport slowed to a stop.
"The Phantom Train," she mused. "So these battlefields are... connected?"
She got to her feet, hand out to call her gunblade as she pulled one of the doors open.
The train car was empty. How Lightning had managed to make three consecutive battlefields - five if she counted the thrones in hell - without encountering another warrior was beyond her, but she only stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She took a seat, looking out the window as the train started to move again.
She sighed, closing her eyes as she leaned back. "If I don't find someone else in the next place, I'm going to be very pissed off."
She opened her eyes.
And was looking into someone else's.
"Gah!"
"Wah!" Lightning shot to her feet, spinning around as the figure clinging to the roof quickly tumbled off. "Who are-"
She was cut off when a book bounced off her head spine-first, hitting the ground. She grunted lightly, wincing as she set her empty hand upon her helm, before glaring at the figure on the floor. "Who are you?"
It was a girl in red, with soft blonde hair. Her skin was pale, carrying the faintest of pink undertones, and trailing from her back was a long, deep pink cape. A series of coloured sashes were tied around her waist, her legs were wrapped in bright white tights, and everything she wore was covered in floral patterns. As she picked herself off the ground, Lightning saw her eyes were a deep purple colour.
There was a moment of silence.
"I said, who are you?" Lightning demanded.
The girl in red didn't respond, only gazing at her shock, with her eyes wide open.
Lightning narrowed her gaze. "Hold on... you're that magic girl from Chaos' side."
What...? The girl's lips moved, but no sound came out.
"The slave that Kefka controlled. The harlequin's puppet. You're the one he called destruction incarnate!" She raised her right hand over her head, the gunblade borne of Omega Weapon flaring into her hand in a surge of light, and she aimed it at the mage girl as the blades pulled back, revealing the barrel of the gunblade.
A moment passed.
"You're... the Fleeting Flash..."
Lightning blinked. "What...?"
"One of the manikins that didn't look like a warrior who was still around. You're from one of the old cycles."
"Old cycles?" Lightning grit her teeth. "That clown didn't actually destroy you. You survived to the next one. Didn't you?"
"What...?"
"DIDN'T YOU!?"
The girl pulled away. "What are you talking about?" she shouted. "Kefka never touched me! It was the Cloud of Darkness-"
Lightning fired her gunblade, blasting the floor between the mage's ankles as she scrambled back. "Did you see anything under that slavery? Do you remember what you've done? Chaos is nothing compared to a mystic horror like you!"
"I was fighting Chaos!"
The girl's shout brought Lightning to a halt mid-shot. "You...? What?"
A wince crossed the mage's face. "I'm one of Cosmos' warriors! Kefka was trying to control me, but I had to finish him off! I saw Cosmos die!"
Lightning pulled back. "How...? Cosmos is a goddess. How could she...?"
"By giving us the crystals, she gave us her power," the girl explained. "That left nothing to protect her when Chaos wrapped her in fire. She died in front of me on the plains of discord. I saw it. I..." She winced, holding out her hand.
Sparks of light began to cross her body, gathering before her.
"I couldn't do a thing to help her..."
With a flash, a figure appeared in the girl's hand.
"...even when she helped me."
Lightning's eyes widened. "Is that... a crystal?"
The mage nodded. In her hands was an ovular figure of ruby red and shining black, the two colours arcing against each other in a pattern like fire. "It takes form when you face your real enemy. Yourself. When you overcome your doubt, that's when Cosmos' gift appears."
A moment of quiet passed; then Lightning turned away, tumbling into one of the seats in shock.
"You... What's your name?" Lightning asked.
"I'm Terra. Who are you?"
Lightning's eyes widened. "Terra..." Now the memories were clearer - she had fought Terra, before Cosmos had granted them power, but now she remembered one of her friends speaking of his encounter. "Do you... remember the name Vaan?"
"Who is that?"
A gasp passed through Lightning's lips, her gaze falling. "He's... the Idle Sky Pirate," she explained. "He said he met you. You... don't remember a thing?"
"None of us do," Terra insisted. "Chaos' warriors said only survivors get to remember."
The warrioress only looked away.
"What's your name?" Terra asked.
"...Lightning," she replied.
Terra stepped past her, taking the seat opposite her. "How did you come here?" she asked. "I thought we were trapped."
"I was stuck in Orphan's Cradle," Lightning replied. "I had to go through hell in order to get out. I started at Chaos' throne, and had to cross the plains of discord. When I arrived at Order's Sanctuary, I found myself at the Crystal Tower."
Terra blinked. "Then... how did you come here?"
Lightning looked up to her.
"I went through the doors."
Draco: I'm going to feel like an ass for saying this, but I'm just going to drop it off there and watch you all squirm. Deepest apologies if Lightning seems out-of-character when compared to any of her characterizations, since I have not played any of the Fabula Nova Crystallis games... but then again, she did go straight through hell.
