Draco: Been putting this one off for too long. Lightning's branch! How the hell I managed to justify putting off Lightning's branch when I've been playing Fabula Nova Crystallis is beyond me.

Just did my first (attempt at a) playthrough of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII as of writing. Thought process as follows (sorry for the funky arrows):
Damn this level system's tough -} Paddra Ballad-Caius is an ass by gameplay -} Is she an antagonist or just an ass -} Why do I write original story fanfiction anymore? Right, IOS -} Holy Mulch she's crying -} Hell with it, I'm not ready for this. Reset! -} Damn this level system's tough.

Dissidia Final Fantasy and all related properties © Square Enix.

Tower of Kefka: Death Angels and Demons

"Ugh..."

Lightning tried opening her eyes. Her face felt like five miles of crystal sands. She could feel something rough and very unkind beneath her skin. She managed in dragging her hands towards one another; any attempts to set them on the surface and push herself upright failed.

Her left hand dragged slowly to her right wrist, where the cuff of her glove transitioned into a hidden recording/transmission device that she used for interrogation, emergencies, and hangovers. The moment she felt contact on her fingers, she managed to call out with a grating voice. "Sorry. Not doing life today. Love to. But can't."

A few moments passed before she realized her fingers were making contact with her own skin.

A groan tore from her throat as she tried to gather the strength to roll over. "What the hell happened last night?" she groaned.

Another few moments passed before she realized she was skyclad.

"Serah," she groaned, "are my gloves out there?"

No response.

That was when she realized gravity was pulling at her feet - she was lying against the inside of a glass tube filled with sickly green fluid.

Her eyes forced themselves open as she saw the steampunk surface around her, mists of crimson Magitek bursting out.

"Oh, shit..."

+x+x+x+

Earlier...

Lightning wasn't sure what she expected when she stepped onto Sky Fortress Bahamut - aided by Yuna apparently having marked the joins from Dream's End - but a robot was not one of them.

Let alone a robot that looked like Vaan.

Her gunblade was already in her hand before she realized that the weapon was in a state of severe disrepair. Being pinned to a pillar with crossbow bolts seemed to be a big reason for it. She didn't have time to be relieved before Kefka's voice shouting "HATE HATE HATE" caught her ears, and she turned towards the center of the battlefield to see the real Vaan with his Formalhaut gun in hand, standing across the ring from the insane clown - who did not presently have his wings drawn.

It was sheer fortune that the jester in question had his focus on Vaan, because a moment's peripheral vision would mean either of them could see her.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find manikin crystals around here?" Kefka roared. "That stupid half-angel is hardly going to sit still if she can't find the Chaos Shrine, and it's not like they're walking around Empyreal Paradox anymore!"

"Half-angel?" Vaan demanded. "You mean Lightning? What does she have to do with manikins?"

Kefka laughed maniacally. "Oh, you don't know where she got her new gear?" he prompted. "Looks like the puppets all ended up in hell when their strings got cut - she's practically wearing the things now!"

Vaan opened his mouth to protest.

"Oh, that's not what I meant," Kefka insisted with a dismissive wave of his hand, his head angling just away that he didn't notice Lightning. "Her new stuff is made from manikin crystals. When she hits things with the blade, a couple shards get stuck in the target. The gear repairs itself right away, but when you get hit as much as I do the pieces add up."

The sky pirate grit his teeth, his eyes flitting to the side - and in the corner of his vision, he saw Lightning standing there. Feeling the edge of his gaze, she raised one finger to her lips before drawing her shield from her back; Vaan made no motion to indicate he understood, only turning to face Kefka again.

"So what do you want?" he demanded, his feet moving along the edge of the ring - and Kefka began to match his actions. "What's the point of these fake manikins?"

"Fake fakes, that's a new one," Kefka mused. "Anywho, I'm trying to get the strings back on my personal puppet. You really did a number on her before the reset. Stupid thing won't take a beating like she used to. As for the rest of you, I don't give a flying-"

Vaan's weapon was already moving; his rifle was raised, and the recoil nearly knocked him over as he fired at Kefka. The shot slammed into Kefka with his face pain burned half off, and he was sent flying backwards before the blaze could do anything - which meant that he got a clear view of Lightning with her shield arm drawn back.

His grin when he realized that she was preparing to cast magic was a thousand times creepier without his paint.

His look of horror when the Ruinga flew from Lightning's hand was glorious.

Ruin magic was something that Lightning knew was unique among the war to her homeworld, which meant that for all his magical mastery, all the power of fallen gods, this stranger was not something he could rule over at first meeting. The sphere of black magic contacted with his face, stunning him and pulling his body into a flip, before exploding in a flare of arcane dust that lingered in the air around impact and slammed him into the bridge between deck and cabin. Yet she knew that sooner or later, he would grasp this magic as well, and the aftershock of mist meant to disorient victims would only give him a stronger chance of overcoming it after one cast.

Which meant she had one shot to get him down.

Rings of light circled her feet, and she shot down the steps as the jester tried to rise, drawing her gunblade behind her before he could react.

"I'm not your tool."

The jester raised his gaze in time to get the upswing of her blow dead to the face as she arced into a spin, maintaining her weapon's momentum as she lashed it up again. His feet connected with the bridge a moment before she brought the weapon around for a horizontal slash, only to bring it back and swing again. The blade split and drew back to clear the barrel as she propelled herself away from the clown, firing point-blank at his face; her own feet found the bottom stair that led up to the body of the airship as she turned and leapt into a backflip, slamming an earthward kick into his face that knocked him halfway to the bridge again. He was stopped from the connection by her landing's transition into another pair of kicks, these landing amidst a spin whilst the edges returned to form a blade; the moment her weapon was sharp, she brought her blade down to strike his chest, drew it across her shoulder for the briefest of moments, and whirled into a spinning trio of slashes that sent him flying into the stairs to the deck.

Kefka's flight carried enough force that an angled surface couldn't stop him; he bounced off and maintained his momentum towards the back of the deck, causing Vaan to yelp and floor himself to avoid getting slammed into the tumble as the clown tumbled across the surface. The sky pirate quickly pulled himself to his feet, turning to Lightning as she charged towards the jester.

Vaan threw his hand out to stop her from passing him. "Light, don't!"

The menacing chuckle emerging from Kefka as he got to his feet prompted Vaan to turn to face him. His face was still unpainted, and with a menacing grin he reached for his chest, where most of Lightning's blade strikes had landed.

His grin turned into a look of shock, and he glanced down at himself, his hands running over his torso. "What what what?!"

Lightning smirked, raising her gunblade before Vaan. "Don't worry," she insisted. "Terra fixed the problem with my blade. All the edge, none of the fragility."

Kefka gave a sound like a Behemoth growling, and Lightning quickly braced her weapon as his jester's robes began to burn away, the wings tearing out of his back with a violence more befitting the lower wings of demon than the angel's wings above. Vaan quickly let his firearm vanish, trading it out for his Golden Axe and the Zodiac Escutcheon, as Kefka's flesh turned charcoal black, and with a wild roar he hurled his Hyperdrive blast towards them.

Vaan hurled his shield across the ground, letting the flames explode prematurely, before throwing his axe with a vertical spin. Kefka beat the thrown weapon away with one demon wing, only for Vaan to body-tackle him wrapped in flames. It didn't take long for Kefka to recover from the initial contact, grab him by the leg, and throw him into the steel - but by that point, Lightning was already rushing him head-on, rings of light fading from around her feet already.

Forsaken magic burst out half a pace ahead of her, and Lightning quickly leapt into the air - a perfect target for Kefka to hurl his Ultima magic at. The blast caught her before she could raise her shield, sending her flying back. She twisted her body and tried to fire at him, but Kefka caught the shots on his wings before charging forward, calling Meteors to fall around her; she managed to avoid his flying tackle, only to get his by the magic on the bounce-back. The burns of the attack left her vulnerable while Kefka grabbed her by the sabaton and threw her into Vaan, cancelling out the sky pirate's attempts to get onto his feet.

A self-hating scoff passed through her lips as she got to her feet. Kefka saw her moving and quickly lashed his hand down for another burst of Forsaken, but Vaan only propelled himself into a roll as Lightning dove out of the way, firing at Kefka again. The shots met his wings once again, but by that time Lightning was already at a kneel.

Her gunblade was drawn across to one shoulder, holding the weapon with the blade along her arm.

"Zantetsuken!"

Her body was propelled forward with all the speed of a demon's steed, and Kefka had only time to begin to move before Lightning was on the other side of his body, her weapon - still in its backhanded grip - extended after a slash; and it was then that the shining streak of the blow tore across Kefka's torso, throwing his arms and legs back as his wings spread wide.

Lightning was still suspended in the air behind him as the blink of her own eyes turned her battle-worn glare into a look of sheer confusion. Wait, what?

Then Kefka's hand slammed into her throat, and all the battle wear in the world couldn't have prevented the unconsciousness that followed.

+x+x+x+

And now, Lightning was trapped here, in a stasis tube in the Tower of Kefka, with all of the equipment she had claimed in hell taken from her. From what she could see, Kefka was not presently in the tower, but that did not make her state more preferable; whatever fluid surrounded Lightning, though doing nothing to prevent breath and speech, made her body feel weaker than any drinking contest ever could.

The strength to move slowly came to her, and she used it to attempt to get a grasp of her surroundings. The psycho clown had placed her in the tower's centermost tube, high in the tower - pretty much the only thing hidden to her was the ledge beneath the walkway. In the other stasis tubes were the various "mechanical manikins" that Kefka had been creating. The nearest one was the Terra figure she was familiar with; a small plate was on the ridge below it, reading Stable Model VI-H-12 version 1. Another one of Sephiroth, his wing drawn - his nodachi so long that it was set against the floor of the tube - and another plate: Stable Model VII-D-13 version 3. The third that she could see seemed to be Kuja with his tail out - Stable Model IX-D-13 version 20 - and a fourth was the Vaan she had seen at the Sky Fortress; though the plate was too distant for her to read, she did make out version 4 at the close end. All of them were floating in a different fluid than she was - theirs seemed to be a swirling blue substance, in contrast with the static green of her own imprisonment.

It didn't take long before Kefka was back - and the expression on his face when he saw Lightning was awake was disturbingly pleasantly surprised.

"Oh, goody, you're awake!" the clown mused, flying up to stop before her tube. "Wondering when you were gonna sleep that off." He turned to pace around the prison as he spoke. "Of course, you're not even half the Esper she is. Really shouldn't have been expecting you to wake up fast after a throw like that. Real shame you missed your fifty, though." Turning to face her again, his whole body leaned over as he cocked his head to one side. "That would have been a sight to see."

As usual, he wasn't making any sense. Lightning didn't comment on it. "What the hell did you bring me here for?"

Kefka waggled a finger disapprovingly. "Now now," he insisted, "don't be such a pissy prisoner." With an overly theatric gesture at the mechs, he answered, "I just wanted someone to appreciate all my hard work, and I know how trigger-happy you are." Here he pointed at Lightning like a parent telling off a troublemaker, rather than the manchild he really was talking to the soldier he had imprisoned. "So, I figured I would make sure you..." Here he tapped the glass - and the fluid within amplified the sound enough for Lightning to grab her ears in pain as he continued, "...weren't in any state to wreck anything." He turned away again, looking towards the Terra mech as he caught his hands behind him. "I must say you're a much easier visitor than she was."

"Go to Pulse," she snapped at him.

The jester angled his head. "Say what now?"

"No, never mind," Lightning replied, holding her hand at an angle before her. "You don't deserve a living hell."

A flare of phantasmal rose petals surged out low to her left and high to her right as the arced blades of Zantetsuken appeared joined in her hand. Odin's blades were far larger than the tube allowed for - one blade would be enough to hook around the container from the outside - which meant the glass shattered with violence as the weapon nestled into her hand. The fluid had been at a high pressure, as liquid surged out from the cracks with enough force to drain it halfway only a few moments after the weapon was drawn, and the break to her left was low enough that the rest continued to drain at a decent pace.

The chill of the Magitek tower caught Lightning's bare flesh, but she refused to let it faze her as she swung the weapon around her, sending the tube flying in pieces.

Then she realized just how weak she really was, and she had to angle the weapon to vertical to avoid collapsing in the area.

Kefka only laughed, seeing Lightning trying to keep herself up against her sword. "You don't quite get it, girlie," he insisted. "That crystal you were wearing was sucking the power out of you from the moment you put it on. The stuff I put in the tube was just an extra thing - getting out of it isn't gonna make you any stronger this early after I got it off you!"

He grabbed the sword out of the soldier's hand, causing her to collapse onto the floor and all the glass and fluid that entailed, before throwing it at the wall with enough force to get it stuck; then he lashed out with a kick that knocked her back into the fragmented remnants of the tube. He clicked his tongue a couple times before snapping his fingers - and magic wrapped around Lightning, suspending her above the tube as the glass pieced itself back together. Once all the pieces were in place, a mist of crimson wrapped the crack lines until the tube was a smooth surface once more - then he stepped forward and kicked a switch on the base of the tube.

The fluid began to fall from above her.

Lightning gave a shout of pain - however brief - as it made contact with the open wounds across her body; and though she did not allow it to sound her cries any further, she couldn't avoid passing out from the constant torrent against her bare scars.

+x+x+x+

When next she woke, the fluid had been set to continually cycle - the blood that her wounds were still producing never lingered long enough to obscure her through the liquid. Kefka had set Zantetsuken in another pod on the other end of the top floor, this one filled with liquid of the same unkind crimson as the Magitek steam emerging around the arena; the jester himself was waiting not ten paces away, reclining on nothing and levitating what appeared to be a solitare game before him.

"When are you going to fix this place?" Lightning asked him aloud, curling her arms and legs - that chill from the breaking had lasted through her unconsciousness, which told her she hadn't been out for too long.

"The hell?" Kefka asked curiously, propelling his card game against a wall. Later, Lightning would admit to being impressed that he had failed to misplace a single card during the movement. "Took you long enough to wake up again."

Lightning shook her head. "You're obviously waiting for something," she stated. "Or someone. If you patch up all the steaming points, it'll make things easier for you if Terra kicks your ass again."

The jester tapped the glass again, causing the same ringing to strike Lightning's ears. "Don't be stupid," he corrected. "I was waiting for you to open your eyes! Do you have any idea how much harder it is to make someone scream when they're still knocked out?"

"Make them scre-?"

Kefka's hands slammed into one another, and a torrent of lightning bolts materialized within the pods, slamming into the soldier. Her body was thrown into a planking position, the voltage racing through her skyclad flesh, and her eyes curled back as the electricity continued for a good ten seconds.

Yet her voice did not escape her mouth.

The electricity faded again, and her head lashed forward; not unfamiliar with being victim to heavy voltage, she rolled her jaw to get the sparks of static out before raising her gaze to Kefka's confused expression.

A smirk rose on her face. "You're gonna have to do better than that."

A snap of the clown's fingers sounded as he turned away. "Right. That Moogle didn't call you Thunder Lady for nothing. You probably don't feel nothing like that."

"How did you know about Mogl-"

Kefka waved his arm skyward, and a huge inferno surged out of the bottom of the tube, throwing Lightning against the top of it and trapping her there as the flames pounded against her bare flesh. The open wounds across her body burned with such pain that for a second she thought they were freezing. If any sound emerged, it was drowned by the roar of flames.

Yet her voice did not escape her mouth.

Then the flames faded, and her position within the tube slowly centered out as Kefka waited. A cough full of ashes passed through Lightning's lips - but when she raised her scorched face to Kefka, there was another smirk.

"Come on," she challenged, her voice grating from the flames. "I went through hell. It starts at Chaos' throne. What did you expect that to do to me?"

"Well, your voice sounds more amusing," Kefka mused. "Still no screams, though."

"Voice?" Lightning asked in confusion. Then, when she realized what she sounded like; "Oh, please, that's just the ashes in my mouth. Wait a second..." A painful-sounding wretch tore out of her mouth as she doubled over, burnt flesh misting around her lips; then she righted herself, waving the ashes to dilute them so the fluid's regulation would be rid of them sooner. When she spoke, her voice was not fully normal, but nor was it as tormented as before.

"See? I'm fi-"

Kekfa tapped his heels together, and screaming ice ripped out across Lightning's flesh. It did not pierce, nor did it rise from within her flesh, for to form new wounds would null the pain; rather, the ice wrapped her, imprisoning her body in a chill beyond what any mortal magic had right to do, and for any other Warrior on these battlegrounds, the jester would have heard his music.

Yet still her voice did not escape her mouth.

A taunting smirk was already on Lightning's face when the ice magic ended, the chill substance fading, and she only told him, "Thanks for closing the cuts." Her voice had returned to normal, for the ice had undone the blaze to her flesh in its attempt to attack the vulnerability.

"Oh, come on!" Kefka protested. "You can have no excuse for all three!"

"Would you believe me if I told you I was related to Shiva?" Lightning asked.

An angry shout passed through Kefka's lips as he flew to the lower levels of the tower.

Lightning angled her head from side to side. "Okay, I'm not a hundred percent sure," she admitted. "The memory isn't all there yet, but I distinctly remember they were-"

"SHUT UP!" Kefka roared. "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! You're taking the fun out of everything! I don't like taking things by force! It's so much easier and so much more fun to break them until their owner doesn't want them anymore and then put them together the way I like it!"

"That makes twelve different kinds of no sense," Lightning protested.

"SHUT! UP!" Kefka screamed, like Lighting wanted him to.

His arm lashed forward, like Lightning wanted him to.

The limb passed through the glass without damaging it, like Lightning did not want it to, and she had no time to react before his middle finger and thumb connected with her temples.

When he spoke, his voice was devoid of humor, of the insanity she was prepared to fight, and instead trembled with calm, composed, focused malice.

"Let judgement's light pierce the darkest corners of your memory. Your mind shall slumber as your body obeys my will."

Images.

Images of her homeworld.

Images of her family.

Images of her friends.

Only images.

And Lightning Farron of Cocoon gave a tortured scream.

Draco: What kind of writer am I? Knowing now that Dissidia's Army of One uses a different animation than XIII's, I turned on the system and found a Sacrifice to slaughter, then reset the fight every time I missed a good shot at a given swing.

Attentive readers will notice several meaningful, minor inconsistencies with valkyrie Lightning in this chapter. Yes, they have good reason.