24 Dust

It was closer to half an hour before Lightning left the clinic. By then, the sunlight was long gone and Ruffian was more alive than ever, with more torches lit, more people wandering around, and more shopkeepers shouting out their wares. She waded into it with a slight headache from the painkillers the doctor had given her, but didn't let her discomfort show even though she had a sore spot in her chest from the needle and the noise just made her headache a little worse.

To her surprise, she encountered Caius almost immediately despite the crowds – or perhaps it was the unmissable shade of her hair – and his eyes betrayed concern.

She had woken up to him gazing down at her with worry, his hand on her shoulder and slightly calloused skin cool against hers. Her whole body had felt, for a few moments, as though it had been lit on fire, and his skin felt like a spot of relief against hers. If she'd had to wake up out of a nightmare to anyone, the only person she might have preferred was Hope, but even Hope had never looked at her that way.

"I'm fine," she said, before he could speak. "The doctor cleared me. It just took longer than expected."

He nodded slowly. "Are you certain?"

"We need to get moving. Wasting time." She used one hand to push him away, slightly, against his shoulder, before walking swiftly past. Caius fell in step behind her without hesitation.

"Good!" was Fang's greeting, where she rose from the sitting area in the central lobby. "You're not dead!"

"And I'm cleared to walk," she said with a nod.

Fang moved closer, hands on her hips, and her green eyes carefully searched hers. "So, what happened, exactly? You went down like a rock. We were all worried."

Lightning felt her brow wrinkle. A harpoon being punched through her chest, a sudden blackout, the familiar light of Bhunivelze greeting her from the dark... and an apparition of Serah. You're doing so much to help, and soon I'll be back home with you, she had said, smiling and clasping her hands behind her as she had so many times before. It had made the void of her heart tighten, the only real semblance of feeling she still had. We'll be together again, you and me and Snow, and all the others, just like old times!

But though Lightning had tried, she couldn't move toward her, feet apparently stuck the ground beneath her. She had flailed and struggled and screamed, but soon her body paralyzed, and Serah's smile suddenly crumbled into a look of terror, right before she covered her face with both hands and screamed.

Serah had left her lips, but no sound.

And then had come Caius's familiar voice, muffled and faraway at first, but steadily becoming clearer, pulling her out of the sea of darkness and Bhunivelze's pinprick of light back to the world of the living. She still didn't understand what exactly had happened.

"I wish I could tell you," she murmured, "but I just don't know."

Fang frowned, but despite obvious misgivings in her eyes, she seemed to understand. "Well, as long as you don't keel over suddenly again... though, with Caius there, at least someone will catch you again."

Lightning looked at Caius. "You caught me?"

His face couldn't be a more perfect mask of neutrality if he tried, but he nodded. Lightning frowned again and turned back around, but her eyes skated across the floor instead, too deep in thought at the moment to focus on who could be approaching her, their footsteps deadened under the bustle of Ruffian.

"We heard what happened." Sazh's voice brought her attention back to the real world. "Good to see you're okay, but it sounded pretty scary."

"I'm fine." She looked up and managed a small smile. "I can walk."

Sazh looked over at Noel, who had changed out of the raggedy clothing he had been wearing before into an outfit befitting a desert traveler – cotton and silk, mostly browns and golds, with blue threading around the edges and sandles like the ones he had worn during his journey with Serah – and they exchanged worried looks. Lightning shook her head and moved outside into the cool night air.

Noel came after her. "Hey, sorry, we worry!"

"I'm the Liberator, backed by Bhunivelze's power. And I'm too stubborn to die." She winced a little at this, thinking of Snow in his Cie'th state. "Besides, Caius is with me, and a lot is riding on me. He won't let me die, either."

"Caius isn't all-powerful," the younger man protested.

Lightning returned her gaze to his. "Maybe that's the case, but apparently you can't pick up when something's meant to be amusing, not serious. Look, we've wasted enough time here. Can we please get going?"

"What, you changed your mind?" Fang said.

Lightning frowned slightly. "Yeah, I guess I did."

Noel looked sheepish, but Fang nodded. "Alright! Let's get going before it gets too dark and creepy. The stars will light our way." She moved away before anyone had the chance to say anything else; they followed her up the gravelly slope to the left of Ruffian, and before long they had left the bustle of the ruins behind. Nothing, not even clouds, stood between them and the open sky.

Lightning walked in silence behind Fang, with Caius beside her as usual, following a long path away from Ruffian and into the deep desert. The only sound was their breathing and their feet on the desert floor – not even any wind blew across the dunes, and nothing else stirred the sands. In the distance, she spotted a flurry of sand and the flick of a fin meant for digging into the hard-packed earth of this land, but the sahagin seemed uninterested in them, instead going after some meal she couldn't quite see.

"Whoa, heads up!" Their leader suddenly ducked to the side, motioning the others to follow. Lightning climbed over a small divot in the sand that ran up the hill they had been climbing, and the others quickly followed her, though Noel mostly backed his way in, looking confused.

"What–" Lightning tried, but Fang clamped down on her arm with one hand.

Then, she saw it – a huge, sweeping shadow, trailing darkness, fanning across the stars high in the sky. It moved without a sound, but she felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. It was the same shadow spoken of in Ruffian, and she had little doubt it was also the same one that had spooked Caius on their way here. Could it be one of the beasts Hope had been tracking from the Ark, so powerful that it warped space and time?

"Some call it Ereshkigal," the other woman whispered, close to her ear. "It can probably smell us, and if I talk any louder, it'll hear us. Gotta wait until it passes."

The beast wheeled on its right wing, making a slow circle over the immediate area.

Caius's hand brushed her left arm; grateful to get away from Fang, Lightning leaned the other way until she was practically on his shoulder and he dipped his head close to hers. "It knows we are here," he murmured. "We did not move quickly enough to get away from it this time."

"But how can you tell?"

"Look how it moves. It knows its quarry is here."

She frowned. "We might be able to fight it if we had to, but I'd rather not take any chances yet." She quickly looked around, sweeping the visible landscape. "Over there. Seems to be a ravine. If we can get down in there, we might be able to get away from it long enough to reach the ruins."

"We're not even halfway there," Fang told her. "If we don't make it, we die, or we get in a big confrontation. That thing has been known to dive out of the sky and snatch people away, never to be seen again."

"Then it needs to die, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, maybe so, but I'm not ready to fight it just yet. Leave well enough alone."

Lightning chewed her lower lip for a moment. "How much further is it to the ruins, exactly?"

"If I had to guess, another hour of walking. Less if we jogged some of the way, but we wouldn't get there anytime soon no matter what we did. I'm taking us along the shortest possible route. That ravine will add a few minutes to the travel time, but you're right, it might protect us until that thing gets bored."

The beast completed its circle and began a second; Lightning gritted her teeth. "We should be able to run just fast enough to get there, but we have to go when it's on the far side."

"And what if you get carried off by it? Can't exactly have that, now can we?"

"It will not happen," Caius assured her. "Even should she be taken by its claws, I swear not to let her come to any harm, no matter what I must do to retrieve her."

Fang growled, but Lightning nodded. "I believe you. Alright, just another moment..."

The beast wheeled slowly around the area, still silent as before, and the moment its inky shape appeared against the stars over the far side of the plain, Lightning sprang out of hiding and immediately angled to the right, running as fast as she could toward the ravine. Fang, Sazh, and Caius were right behind her, and Noel took up the rear, all of them running as fast as possible across loose sand and weathered rock. The ravine seemed further away than before, particularly when she looked to her left... and the beast was coming straight toward her.

"Keep running!" she shouted. "It's coming!"

"I knew this was a bad idea!" was Fang's shouted response.

Now the beast was no longer silent, its movements sending up swirls of dust and sand in its wake, and when she looked again, she spotted the silhouette of huge, fanged jaws opening up, fully prepared to sweep the party up with frightening ease. Left with no other options, she shouted for the group to scatter, and they immediately split off into various directions while she dive-rolled out of the path of the jaws. They snapped the air behind her, and the wake swirled sand around her like a great tornado.

Without waiting to see if it was coming back, she immediately scrambled to her feet to continue her run, only to get the funny sensation of something bearing down on her.

Looking over her shoulder, she saw the beast more clearly, its ornate wings silhouetted against the stars, eyes glowing faintly gold in the darkness, and a tail unfurled behind it, smacking the sand and sending up torrents that blocked the stars and the landscape behind her from view. This time, when its jaws opened, she heard an inhuman scream and wasn't sure if it was the wind or the creature making the sound.

Lightning immediately threw herself out of the path of the jaws, only to realize with horror that it had turned its head and was again reaching for her. Scrambling and throwing dirt, she got up to her feet and put everything she had into it, but its jaws still bore down on her... until she was suddenly knocked off her feet, hitting the ground shoulder-first with the wind slightly knocked out of her, having landed on something uncomfortably hard. As the dust cleared, she looked up at Caius, who had apparently brought her down on her side but taken the brunt of the impact with his own body. She could've taken the hit, though it would have hurt, but she appreciated his willingness to.

She scrambled back to her feet as the beast swept by.

"I could do nothing while you were so close," he told her as he also stood. "I hope–"

"Caius, relax, it's fine," she said, and slapped his shoulder.

"Comin' round!" Fang shouted. Starlight and the glow of the Ark flicked across a metallic tube, and she spotted the other woman's staff unfurling from its lock position with a snap. Sand and dust swirled around her as she quickly flipped it into an angled, battle-ready position. "Can't outrun it!"

"Yes we can!" she shouted back. "Keep moving!"

"No," Caius hissed when she tried to do so. "No outrunning it. That much is obvious. We must fight it off."

She gritted her teeth, but said, "Okay. Got any ideas? I'm all ears."

"Let me handle this one."

Understanding swept over as she looked at him with slightly widened eyes. Though she was fully aware of Caius's raw power, she had yet to see it truly unleashed. Now, it seemed he was going to do exactly that. "Do it." She faced the others and shouted, "Fang, Noel, Sazh, get somewhere safe now!"

"What a great idea, I never thought–" Noel's sarcastic quip was cut short by a yelp as the beast swooped right over him and slashed at the ground near him with its tail.

As she ran toward the ravine once more, she heard the sound of sand rushing over itself and looked back to see Caius in his familiar battle stance, hands held out to his sides and his back to her. As the mighty beast swooped up into the stars, corkscrewed, and came back down, a sudden blast of darkness laced with golden checkerboard patterns split time and space, slamming into its face and stopping it cold in midair. The beast screamed, beating its wings against some sort of shimmering barrier. It wasn't until Fang ran by and yanked her by the shoulder that she realized she'd stopped dead to watch and continued her sprint to safety.

Caius pushed back against the beast, and she looked back as she reached the ravine to watch. Two fountains of great power pushed against one another, one a cloud of shadow and the other a shimmering spire of gold, and they seemed to be evenly matched at first glance, but as she looked more carefully at Caius's stance, she realized he had hunkered down more, pulling more chaos into the area, coalescing into a–

Lightning's eyes flew wide open. "Not good," she muttered, then added "Move!" when everyone stared at her. The three then began to run along the length of the ravine, the rush of air and sand filling the spaces between them with alternating shadows. Fang led the way, running and leaping over cracks and crevices, dodging roots and rocks, before she suddenly clambored out of the ravine some distance down and ran full tilt out across the sand, still in the direction of the ruins. Lightning and the others followed.

The sudden explosion of hot, compressed air knocked her off her feet. It took the others down as well, all of them tumbling with the impact; Lightning brought her knees around to land on her feet and looked back in the direction of the explosion. The beast trailed golden light as it screamed and flew up into the air – the only thing visible, in fact, in the swirling bloom of darkness that had taken its place.

Then Caius was beside her, trailing tendrils as he formed in midair. "That may not deter it forever, but I was able to wound it. That should be enough for now."

She managed a smirk. "Excellent. Alright, everyone, keep moving!"

"Be wary, Lightning," he said as they moved off again. "We will have to face it again. Next time, you may have no choice but to face it head-on and try to kill it."

Fang had no problem with this, moving at a ground-eating jog with her staff still unfurled and gripped tightly in one hand. The sound of the beast's pained cried followed them all across the desert, but though she saw its shadow fall across the stars above them more than once, it did not seem keen on attempting another assault. Remembering how painful some of her companion's attacks had been, she smirked, knowing it had no desire to repeat the experience of its scales and skin becoming scorched by chaos-fueled fires.

"Right over the ridge and down that slope," Fang finally said, and pointed. "Go along the beach. There's an entrance in the rocks, you'll see it. Get inside before that thing changes its mind."

Lightning groaned. "Followed us all the way here. It's personal."

"We'll probably have to deal with it on the way out. Sounds fun." Sazh wheezed slightly when he spoke, obviously tired from the hike. "Sooner we get in and out, sooner it's over."

The slope was gravelly and strewn with what seemed to be the crumbled remains of sea creatures, and it led down to a swath of brown sand against which the edge of the Sea of Chaos lapped. The blue luminescence cast an eerie glow on the party's features, reminding her too much – and too suddenly – of Valhalla, and yet oddly it made her think of lying at the bottom of the sea and gazing up at the light filtering through the surface.

It was strangely calming, and she revealed in the sensation.

"Wait a second." Fang stopped some distance from the entrance, twin torches sputtering on either side and evidence of ancient vegetation rattling against the rocks. At first, Lightning wasn't sure what made her stop, until she saw where sand had been kicked up near the entrance and rocks scattered. Moving past Fang, she approached and saw a spatter of darkness on the rock.

"That's blood, Fang," she said, frowning and backing up. "That always there?"

"No." The other woman sounded strained.

Lightning moved to the threshold and peered down into the shadows. Though a torch could be seen in the darkness, it was very orange – more coals than fire, as though no one had tended to it for a while. A faint scent of chaos mingled with something bitter came to her nostrils, and she looked back at the others. "Something doesn't look right," she murmured. "What's this normally like?"

"There's normally a guard here, then some guys scurryin' around down there." Fang's voice had become even more strained, worry furrowing her brow. "They're not here, and no evidence of 'em, either. Lightning, something's up, and I'm suddenly real glad you're here with us."

"What else is in these ruins besides your bandits? Any creatures?"

"Ah, well, we haven't run into very many. Been pretty manageable so far, but we didn't get past some of those doors, like I said. Might be worse further down." Setting her jaw firmly, she frowned at Lightning. "Maybe they ran into trouble with bigger monsters or something. I don't know."

Sazh fingered his pistols. "We will soon enough."

"If there's something down there, we can handle it," was Noel's response. When Lightning looked at him, she noted that he didn't seem all that concerned. "Whatever it is can't be much worse than some of the things that'd wander in Luxerion at night. You should've seen what they left behind sometimes." He raised one eyebrow. "That is, if they left anything behind. Sometimes they didn't, except the blood."

Lightning felt a shiver pass down her spine, but turned and moved inside the entrance. Caius remained close to her, between her and Fang, as they moved into the darkness. The torch popped, sending up a flurry of embers, but there was otherwise no sound besides the whisper of wind across the stone. The torch's orange light was dim and cast thick black shadows that cloaked the walls. Unnerved, she moved slowly and carefully, finding both the weight of the sword on her back and Caius's proximity oddly reassuring.

No one made a sound, and as Lightning's eyes adjusted to the darkness, she began to truly grasp just what sort of place they had found themselves in.

Cracks in the ceiling let in the faint light from outside, and a distant orange torch cast light into a broad hallway with small chambers on either side, sealed by fallen rock, metal bars in terribly dilapidated states, or roped off with small yellow caution signs hanging on them. The chambers and hallway plunged into pitch darkness beyond the reach of the starlight and torchlight, as though the world simply ended.

"We have to go down a few levels," Fang whispered to her. "But it's no good if we can't see. I gave very strict instructions that as many torches as possible were to be kept fueled and lit at all times, and that hasn't changed since I've been here. Something is very wrong. And it's far too quiet. Where is everyone?"

"Which direction to the lower levels?" Lightning asked.

"Should be that way, dead ahead."

"Can we pull one of these torches for the walk?"

"I hope so. This place is creepy." It was Sazh who spoke, though he seemed more annoyed by the creepiness than actually nervous about it. Noel made a sound of agreement.

"They're fitted pretty tight into the walls," Fang said, "but I can see if I can pry one off..."

"Fang, move aside, please." Caius spoke this time in a very low, quiet tone. Fang looked at him, but did as he asked, sidestepping toward the wall. Lightning watched, his body faintly outlined by orange light, before a sudden flare of purple light appeared before him, casting violet light across his features. With a flick of the wrist, he tossed it into the darkness, and it left a trail of purple light – not terribly bright, but more than enough for their darkness-adjusted eyes to see without tripping over anything.

"Looks like you're good for something after all," Noel said.

Fang moved up, now on the other side of Lightning from Caius, and with the warrioress on her left and her enemy-turned-comrade on her right, she moved forward, following the phosphorescent trail of purple as it floated in midair and made a turn further down. Sazh and Noel stayed at the rear of the group. The purple light cast soft-edged shadows on the walls that stretched toward the ceiling.

"Don't hear a thing," Noel said after several minutes. "Nothing. No footsteps, no voices. Like a tomb."

"There's more entrances to the ruins, but they're sealed from the inside and I never bothered to have anyone open them, though everyone's aware they exist. Maybe something happened and they had to leave that way." She didn't sound all that convinced, and Lightning was not, either.

As they began their descent, Caius tossed out another orb of light that revealed a stairwell leading to a door open to a large atrium beyond. The air down here was still, though piles of dust and sand were visible in the corners. No one said a word as they moved in, but Lightning sensed Fang becoming more agitated by the second, and she seemed to be making soft sounds of worry deep in her throat.

"All wrong, all wrong," was what finally came out. "All wrong. Someone should be here."

Lightning did not dare call out, so instead she reached out with her senses as best she could, probing the shadows. She did not like the chilly feeling of being watched, as though enemies hunkered in the shadows and gazed steadily at them – a thousand eyes all staring from the darkness, but when she tried to pierce the darkness, nothing except the abyss stared blankly back at her. A chill passed through her body, and Caius seemed to sense her unease, moving closer – either that, or it was pure coincidence he chose that moment to do so.

They walked in almost complete silence for a long time, with only the sound of their footsteps breaking it. They passed through several more chambers, a large atrium, rounded a corner partially blocked off by metal bars, and were met with a large, ornate door covered in tarnished silver leaf.

Fang stopped dead at the sight. "Oh, no," she said in a quiet voice. "No."

The doors stood open, evidence of them sweeping the ground visible where they formed arcs of flattened sand. Fang moved closer, one hand outstretched, her mouth opening and closing several times before she stopped and faced the others again. Lightning understood what was the matter very quickly.

"This is one of the doors, isn't it?" she murmured. Fang's expression was all the answer she needed.

"But I thought only Lightning could open these because of her Bhunivelze-given power," Sazh said. "Isn't that why you brought her here? I thought nobody could get these open without her."

"That's true," the darkhaired woman snapped. "No one should be able to open these doors, ever, unless their name starts with 'Lightning'. This doesn't make sense. Everyone's missing, the door's open, it's dead quiet and the torches are going out. What could have happened?" Seething, she turned and gave the door a swift kick. It did not budge at the impact. "I don't believe this!"

Lightning frowned thoughtfully at the open doors, watching as another orb of purple light was flung into the room beyond. It illuminated a huge chamber crosscrossed with balconies and walkways, so huge that its ceiling was only barely lit by the purple orb and most of it actually disappeared into darkness.

"I don't like this," she admitted quietly.

"I have sensed a growing presence of chaos down here, and more than just the usual ambient amount." Caius looked down at her when she looked up at him. "It seems there is a bloom of it below us." He looked thoughtful a moment, then turned and lowered himself to one knee, reaching out a hand that hovered over the stone floor. A few seconds of silence broken by Fang's irritation followed. "Some sort of central chamber, very large. There is an immense power source down there, but I cannot tell you more than that."

"That'd be the clavis chamber. It's right down there. We have to go down one more level."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Noel said.

They all looked at him. "We don't have much choice," Lightning said. "If the doors are open, then we have to get to the clavis before the Order realizes the road's open." She sighed. "I don't like it, either, Noel, but if we're going to make sure Vanille is safe, we have to get down there."

"You hear that?" Noel said suddenly.

Lightning held her breath, listening, and the others did the same. There – the sound of something... clattering faintly in the darkness. More disturbed than ever, she drew her sword, holding it at her hip in a stance of battle readiness. She peered into the darkness, but again could discern nothing, and the sound of something scraping lightly across the stone, disturbing the dust, made goosebumps creep across her skin.

"I don't like this," Noel said, echoing her feelings.

"It does not appear to be in this room," Caius told her. "The sound is carrying from elsewhere."

"And it ain't my bandits. By Pulse, what is going on down here?"

"We need to keep moving, pick up the pace. Fang, can you lead us to the clavis chamber?"

"Yeah," the other woman said in a clipped tone before jogging ahead. The rest of the party strung out behind her, Noel bringing up the rear. Sazh made concerned sounds and grumbled about the "creepy darkness" again, but kept up the pace fine behind them. Each pocket of darkness they entered was soon lit by purple luminescence, giving the whole place a surreal sort of appearance, and coupled with the perpetual acrid stench of the chaos, which grew stronger the further they went, it made her think of Valhalla.

Well, at least she wasn't having flashbacks.

"This one shouldn't be open, either," was Fang's response to encountering another silver door. "It's just like the first one, so it's gotta be the same sort of door!"

The clattering sound had been following them the entire way, and had also grown much louder.

As they quickly made their way through another doorway, partially blocked by the archway having collapsed from the wear and tear of time, the acrid stench of the chaos suddenly becoming sickening, and Lightning felt her throat constrict when she breathed some of it in. Her affinity to the chaos had been dampened by Bhunivelze's power, but at least it let her walk through clouds of darkness mostly unscathed.

"There's way too much of this stuff down here! It shouldn't even be here!" Fang swore loudly and bounded forward into the massive chamber that lay beyond the collapsed doorway. Caius cast out an orb of light... only for its brilliance to be swiftly dampened by a bloom of darkness roughly halfway into the room.

Startled, Lightning slid to a stop, spraying dust and gravel. "What do you mean, Fang? You saying all this is new?"

"Well, far as I know, it wasn't here two days ago!"

"It's awful," was Noel's response, and when she looked back, she found him doubled over, both hands grasping the sides of his head. "You hear them? All those voices? Just screaming!"

"Lightning, help me!"

She whirled at the distant sound of Serah calling out to her, but saw nothing except the darkness, the checkerboard patterns shifting around the orb of light and causing it to scattered like refractions in a crystal. The chaos seemed to have a mind of its own after all, and now it was having fun playing games with their minds.

"Not real, not real, not real..." She practically chanted the words, and slowly, she felt herself begin to calm again.

"I know it's not!" Noel shouted. "It's just... there's too many."

"I hear it too, the screaming! Like wind and death. And I swear I heard Dajh in there somewhere."

A clear, childlike laugh rang out from the depths of the darkness; knowing she heard it for real, Lightning turned and stared into the shadows, willing them to part. She knew the voice, all too well, even though she had really only been hearing it for a few days. "Lumina!" she shouted. "Why are you here?"

Then, suddenly, the darkness parted, exploding outward toward the walls and ceiling, and as the light of the orb fell fully on their surroundings, she saw something that chilled her bones.

They were utterly surrounded by skeletons.

Noel unleashed a very colorful string of exclamations, backing toward the light, while Sazh pulled both pistols and fired at two of the skeletons, hitting them directly between the eyes. Lightning took a step back, colliding with something, but when she looked, it was Caius, in a battle stance and back-to-back with her, his long-vanished, vicious-looking sword having materialized in his right hand.

The skeletons, eyes glowing pink with the fires of chaos, shambled forward, holding ancient swords and shields, making no other sound but that of quaking bones. Enormously disturbed, Lightning gritted her teeth, swung her sword, and cleanly removed the head of one. The skull bounced across the ground; the beast kept coming, so she reversed, slashed up, then straight down, cleaving the skeleton neatly in two. The crack of shattering, dusty bone sounded like a gunshot, despite the clattering and the roar of chaotic winds.

Sazh was off to the side, shouting dares at the approaching beasts, bashing them with pistols before proceeding to perforate them with bullets, removing heads and bones that clattered to the ground. Noel had taken out both swords and was doing his best to clear a path, but some did not go down without a fight.

And through it all, she kept hearing Lumina's giggle.

"Caius Ballad," she said over her shoulder, "you ready to remind me what you're capable of?"

She felt him shift his stance slightly against her back. "Say when."

A large group of skeletons approached with shaky steps, belying the brutality they were no doubt capable of. She bared her teeth and growled softly in her throat. When they were maybe a dozen steps away, she said, "Let's end this quickly," and immediately lunged forward, tearing into them with all the strength she could muster. She hacked off limbs, severed spines and necks, crushed ribcages, and all the while, Caius moved beside her, perfectly melding every step, every strangely graceful strike, to fill the gaps in her own – never missing a step, never getting too close or moving too far away, never leaving any part of her six unwatched.

And in return, she did exactly the same, cleaving a path of destruction in her wake.

The years and years and years of war in Valhalla immediately showed the only positivity she had ever seen as they moved together in an efficient, perfectly matched war dance, as though they were two halves of a single entity made just for battle. Caius's longer years of experience showed in quick, silky movements, but she matched them closely enough, mimicking steps and swings and stabbing uppercuts that she had practiced for too many centuries on him that she now could use without concern at his side.

Even on Gran Pulse, alongside others of her kind, with two warrioresses well-accustomed to battle and a man used to pummeling monsters with nothing but his fists, she had never moved in such perfect harmony with anyone, and it was a refreshing, exhilarating sensation.

As the skeletons continued to advanced, seemingly forming out of the chaos itself, she slashed out with her sword and blasted them into bits with white fire. Flickers of pink and violet revealed Caius's power behind her, carefully calculated for maximum effect in a very small area, like with her own. They soon stood surrounded by piles of bones, cracked shields, and swords, and still the skeletons came.

Lumina, who had been giggling through most of the skirmish, was no longer laughing.

She felt nothing but battle flowing through her – no exhaustion, no pain, only the feeling of sweat running down her bare back and across her palms, the burn of exertion in her lungs, her blood thrumming with the familiar rhythm of battle. To her left, Fang seemed to share her feelings, battle cries and insults flying from her lips as she bashed skeletons away with her spear and kicked them back into the shadows. Sazh was still shooting, while Noel was still doing his best to avoid disappearing until a pile of bones.

"Alright, I'm bored! This is too easy!"

The skeletons suddenly dropped into piles of inanimate bones at Lumina's voice. Lightning stopped dead, halfway through another step in her rhythm, sword hovering out in front of her. Caius stood just behind her, but she didn't have to look back at him to know exactly how he was feeling.

"Too easy?" It was Noel who shouted this time, bones and shields and swords rattling as he pushed his way through the pile. "Really? You wanna come down here and do it yourself, you stupid girl?"

"Evil little rugrat," was Sazh's thought on the situation.

Lightning, chest heaving, shifted her weight, pulling herself back into a normal stance. "We're only here for the clavis. We plan to get it and get out. Get out of our way."

"You're here to destroy it. You see, I can't let you do that. It'd be way too easy." Her disembodied voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. "You know, you and Caius actually make a halfway decent team when you're not trying to kill each other." She giggled. "And we definitely can't have that."

"Lumina–" Noel began, sounding angrier than ever.

"Less talking, okay? More fighting!" And again the chaos swirled around them, carrying away the bones, only to coalesce a short distance away. In the light of the orb, she saw plate armor, large glowing eyes, limbs and claws made for striking and death, and all around it swirled the familiar checkerboard pattern.

"I can't believe I thought coming with you was a good idea!" Sazh cried.

"Less talk, more kill! More kill!" Noel told him.

Lightning swallowed and looked over at Caius. He met her eyes, and the corner of his lips twitched up into a smirk she knew all too well – except this time, she rather liked the feeling behind it. They nodded, faced the beast, and immediately leapt into battle without further hesitation.

The beast was enormous, the size of one of the normal chaos beasts, only this one had the advantage of being covered in thick plate armor. When she tried to attack it head-on, it roared into her face and knocked her off her feet. She rolled back up onto them quickly enough and swiftly gauged her opponent. It had a soft underbelly, and its face was mostly unprotected, but it would be very difficult to get to the heart of darkness that gave it form and power without essentially going right down its throat.

Caius, though, didn't seem unusually concerned, tossing pearls of light into the creatures face, then bashing it where its skull would be when it tried to snap its jaws at him. Tendrils of darkness, protruding from the armor on its back, flailed through the air and brushed the ceiling. One of them swung around toward Noel, but he dropped to the ground to avoid it and was immediately up on his feet again, fighting back.

Caius landed on the ground beside her, looking mildly perturbed at his rhythm being interrupted, and looked over at her when she looked at him.

"Any ideas about the armor? We need to reach its heart!"

"We will have to remove it, but to do that, I must get under it. And no, I do not want you to even attempt it. This is far too dangerous for the Liberator to risk her life. I will not die. It will just hurt."

Lightning didn't feel like arguing this time. "Alright, fine. Talk to me!"

"Keep it busy and try to make it stand up more! It is too close to the ground now for me to do anything."

Lightning looked over at it and realized that it was practically on the ground, its belly brushing across the stone. She looked back at him and nodded, then scrambled to her feet and quickly relayed the orders to the other. They all gave her looks that made her realize they were all in over their heads – except Fang, who looked absolutely delighted to be fighting in such a desperate, dangerous battle.

Sazh, on the other hand, was wide-eyed and nervous, while Noel looked ready to kill someone.

Well, the voices probably hadn't helped.

"Alright, fan out! Flank it!" Lightning ran to the side, followed by Fang, while Sazh and Noel followed. The beast slung its head back and forth for a moment, as though not really sure what it wanted to do, before deciding that the two men looked less dangerous and lashing out at them.

"Hey, beastie! Over here!" Fang struck out, hit the armor, took a few steps to the side, and rammed the tip of her spear deep into its shadowy flesh. It screamed.

"That's the worse thing I ever heard!" Noel shouted. "Let's kill this thing! It's making me angry!"

Fang rammed her spear in a few more times before the beast swatted her away. She landed some distance away on her back, and though she climbed back to her feet, she looked dazed. If not for her natural strength and the effects of a changed world, Lightning guessed her spine would have snapped on impact.

The four of them leapt at once, and while it lashed out with tendrils and teeth and claws, Caius approached directly from the front, a familiar look of determination on his face, and leapt straight up into the air. Flipping the sword around, he drove it right into the skull, spewing liquid chaos and smoke. The beast screamed, shaking its head, trying desperately to get him off, but he hung on, pulling out the sword. When it swung its head up, he let go to land on the ground below it, and before the beast came back down, he disappeared under it.

"Almost there," Lightning panted, and dodged a sudden snap of the jaws.

Lumina laughed like a gleeful schoolgirl.

And then the creature just exploded into smoke, the orb illuminating its vanishing body as it drifted into the furthest reaches of the huge chamber. On his knees where the beast had been moments before was Caius, one hand on his knee and the other resting on his sword where it had been plunged into the ground. To her left, Fang groaned and leaned on her spear, shaking her head, while Noel looked around frantically to her right. Sazh aimed his pistols around for a few moments before holstering them.

Lightning came up to Caius, bending down when she stood in front of him. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to hers, lips parted and a pained expression on his face.

"I am alright," he murmured. "Just give me a moment to recover."

She nodded and turned away, this time going over to Fang. The other woman nodded and straightened, though her chest visibly heaved, betraying exhaustion and discomfort. "This better be worth it, because I'm gonna need a long nap and a hot shower when it's all over with."

After a few more moments, Noel finally sheathed his swords. "Any more excitement?" he growled.

Lightning looked at him and shook her head.

Fang collapsed her spear and returned it to its sheath on her back, and as she turned to continue forward, Lightning saw her eyes widen slightly. "Whoa," she said, almost breathless. "Look, guys, I know the clavis is important and all, but did y'all see what's on the walls around here?"

For the first time, Lightning turned to take in her surroundings. The purple orb, now unobstructed by the chaos, cast soft light on the nearest walls and support pillars, revealing vast, weathered murals spreading from edge to edge, their stories painted in what she supposed were once-vivid hues. Caius climbed to his feet and tossed out another orb toward the wall, where it came to hover above the mural closest to them. Lightning gasped softly – it was chipped, as though someone had sabotaged it, and badly weathered, but she could still make out the form of a woman in ornate armor, blood dripping from her robes, with a crystal covered in gold leaf hovering above a landscape that included cities, wilderness, and people wandering the streets.

"I think that's Etro," Fang said. "We saw some other murals up top, but never got this far in. Looks like the dialect is the same, though. See the writing?" She raised one hand, gesturing at the Pulsian script. "Uh, let's see... some of it's kind of chipped off, but I think, uh... something about a great battle to take place at the end of time, the chaos, and something about Bhunivelze, but that part's all gone."

Lightning tilted her head. "And who's that?" she said, pointing at a figure in the lower-right corner. It depicted a woman with long silvery-blue tresses, reminding her of Yeul, one hand outstretched and a look of horror on her face, but the script beside her had been mostly worn away, leaving few pieces behind. She was sinking into a vast black sea below the landscapes and seemed to be in the midst of a losing battle.

"Looks like her name is 'Mwynn", and it says 'mother of'... and then the rest is gone. Someone desecrated it."

"Bhunivelze's mother?" Lightning stared at the figure.

Sazh made a surprised sound. Fang stared at her. Even Noel couldn't stay quiet, saying, "Wait, what?"

"Someone told us that Bhunivelze had a mother named 'Mwynn', who he sent to the chaos long before Etro had even been, well, 'born'," Lightning said. She looked over at Caius, who stood a few feet away and seemed to be staring at the mural, transfixed. "From what I understand, he fought a war with her that he started, won, and killed her, sending her to Valhalla, where she was swallowed up by the chaos."

Fang looked back at the mural. "It's not mentioned in any legends. No literature, no scriptures. Nothing. No one ever makes any mention of Mwynn, even back in my original time."

"Why would they? Saying he has a mother might mean he's not immortal," Noel said.

Lightning felt her brow wrinkle in thought.

"It would ruin his reputation as a 'benevolent' deity, you know?" The young hunter moved closer to the mural and used the inside of his wrist to buff away some of the caked-on filth. "The guy killed his mom. I mean, that's not exactly the kind of bedtime story you wanna tell your kids."

"Right," Sazh muttered. "Hey, kids, remember that guy Bhunivelze? You know, the head honcho? Yeah, he killed his mom. But he's totally the good guy, don't worry!"

Fang snickered. Lightning said, "My perspective is definitely... altered. But I'm still his Liberator, and I'll remain so until – or, hopefully, only if – he gives me some reason to do otherwise. For now, we need to focus on fulfilling his mission so he'll give us the new world and bring Serah back. That's all that matters."

"He's going to bring Serah back?" Noel paused and looked thoughtful, though he kept his eyes on the mural. "I don't know the exact circumstances behind him killing Mwynn, but can you trust someone like that?"

"He promised me," she snapped, and Noel raised an eyebrow.

Fang moved away from the mural, though she still looked thoughtful. "The clavis chamber is right over there. Hey, Caius, can you toss out another of those orbs? We should be pretty–"

Dead silence fell over the group as the orb flitted through the air. Its light illuminated two enormous, ornate doors, carved with the image of a huge tree with numerous deep roots and broad branches. Since the doors were wide open, this was really all that could be seen before the reality of the sight sunk in. Lightning stared at the room beyond, not sure she wanted to go inside and confirm what she already knew.

"No," Fang said, her voice uncharacteristically small. "No, no, this can't be right."

Lightning swallowed. "The clavis is gone."

The other woman hung her head, one hand rubbing her forehead. Noel and Sazh looked at each other, but neither seemed particularly keen on speaking. Caius, standing at his normal spot beside her, only gazed blankly into the darkness, the orb of light casting his body in soft shadows and smooth glimmers of violet light. Lightning found it much less stressful to look at than the darkness.

"Someone got in here and took it," she added, "but I couldn't tell you how. Caius, can you find out where they are? I need to track that clavis down and get it back, or destroy it, worst case scenario."

"Good. You're startin' to see reason," Fang grumbled.

Lightning glanced at her, only to notice that Noel had moved away from the group toward one of the support columns, squinting at it. While Caius developed a look of supreme concentration, eyes closed and fingers splayed, she moved over toward Noel and saw etchings in the pillars – more scenes, she guessed, to accompany the murals that no doubt covered every wall. "See something?" she said.

"Well, this one seems to depict the War of Transgression. Either it's newer than all the others or based on some sort of prophecy. Can't really tell." He smoothed one hand across the stone. "It's a different style. Huh. Must be a whole different era." He looked at her. "Well, while you were getting all worked about the clavis, I decided I'd look around a little bit. I'm kind of a history buff, and these are just fascinating."

Lightning circled around the pillar to see more etchings – a village in the wilderness being attacked by a monster, a stylized image of what appeared to be Titan shaping mountains out of the earth, a great serpent sweeping through the mountains, its ridged back creating gorges and cliffs in its wake.

"More over here. Looks like all the pillars have something on them." Noel moved to a different column, closer to one of the floating orbs of light, and brushed away some sand. "This one's real stylized, but it looks like Cocoon. It must have been a huge prophecy to get attention like this." Lightning peered closer to see a sphere trailing wisps, like a comet, balanced atop a stylized pillar of crystal. "And, this one. Huh. Got me."

Lightning peered around at the next etching. It was in shadows, but she made out a box surrounded by people on their knees, arms raised, and a swirling cloud rising out of the box. A figure stood in the center of it, expression twisted into one of pain, while misshapen faces screamed in terror, scattered across the cloud.

"That's disturbing," she muttered.

A soft sigh told her that Caius had appeared beside her from the chaos. "They are no longer in the desert. They are on one of the monorails, heading toward Luxerion."

Lightning gritted her teeth. "They must be taking it to the cathedral. Alright. We're going back there."

Noel looked up from the etching. "Taking it to Vanille?"

"Looks that way. We're going to have to save her from them, but I can't force her." This she directed at Caius. "She has to come of her own volition, or it won't matter. Kidnapping her won't solve anything. If she's going to come, she has to accept that continuing her path is wrong. Guilting her won't help, and if we force her, then she'll always think she would be better off there. No. We'll take care of the clavis and save Vanille in one go."

"Alright." Noel straightened and tapped his fists together. "All in."

"That will cripple the Order," Caius said, but he sounded pleased. "It should be interesting."

She managed a half-smirk. "Oh, I'm sure. Let's rest here a bit before heading back to the surface. I know Sazh will go, no question, but Fang needs to stay in Ruffian to watch her bandits and rest. We'll bring Vanille back to her, safe and sound... if she agrees to leave." She took a deep breath. "Alright. We move in five minutes."

"What about the people who disappeared here?" Noel said.

She looked at him. "Well, it sounds like the people who stole the clavis have some explaining to do."

Finally, we're away from the ruins, as well as done with the desert in general for now. These two chapters have been dedicated to setting up... well, pretty much the rest of the story. The groundwork is laid and things are about to Get Real. Some quick notes regarding this chapter:

1) Changed the reveal of the clavis's purpose to the manner described above, because the way the narrative is constructed, having Cid Raines pop up would have involved some shoehorning, so I decided to do it this way instead. A bit clunky, but it works.

2) Yes, that is THE Ereshkigal, the superboss from the game. She's playing a larger part this time, as you'll see as the story goes on.

And the chaos just keeps getting weirder. It will all make sense sooner than you think, but for now, between Lumina and myself, we're enjoying just kind of toying with your brain a bit. Chaos makes all sorts of weird stuff happen...

Anyway, let me know what you think. Next chapter will come sooner than this one because I've been planning it for MONTHS. Should be fun.