Chapter 11: Elevate, Extricate
True to her word, Lightning arranged for our travels. Apparently visiting Palumpolum in 10 AF required prep work. Though I'd tried reading the Director and Alyssa's papers on paradoxes, time travel held little of my interest. If it had, I would've had a better understanding of what Lightning had told me. Something about needing to see Alyssa so that she'd be ready for us in a matter of months. With practice, and the frequency she'd been leaving to Valhalla, Lightning was much better at timing the exact time and location of her temporal rifts.
If I'd been really listening, I'd know why the hell she'd taken us to the very center of the middle-of-nowhere-Steppe. The grasslands were hardly Palumpolum by any stretch of the imagination. A lone creature cawed overhead.
Lightning summoned Odin. There was no glowing light, no shattering of eidoliths, none of the fanfare I was used to.
She only said, "Odin, would you mind coming out?" and he materialized in front of us. "Hey, buddy," she whispered, nuzzling her face into his neck. He'd appeared to us in his horse form.
"I never realized how fitting he is for you." I reached out to stroke his mane, but he dodged and neighed.
"Told you he wouldn't like the apple comment."
"He heard that?"
"Of course he heard."
He stomped in agreement and flicked his tail for emphasis. I couldn't help myself and chuckled.
"Like I said, he's perfect for you. Even in gestalt mode, he's the only Eidolon who remains a living, breathing creature." When I reached for him, he let me stroke his chest. "He trusts you. He chooses to stay at your side." I grinned at her. "Only you could convince others to follow you into battle."
"As thrilling of a speech as that was," she said, flicking me in the head, "Why do I suspect you're leaving something out?"
I chuckled again and watched as she mounted her steed. "Vanille loves sheep and Sazh has a pet, but you never let on that you were an animal lover. You like chocobos more than Dajh." Lightning locked hands with mine to hoist me up. "Odin showing up as a stallion makes you kind of adorable."
"You're such a glass half-full type."
"Oh, do you have a different opinion?"
"Did you ever think..." she squeezed at Odin's sides, urging him to move, "... he's alive because I'm lonely? You were there when we met. I'd just pushed away the only person who would ever try getting to know me."
I wrapped my arms around her middle and pressed my cheek to her back. These thoughts of hers, she only had them because of Valhalla. Locked in a place with no time and no one to talk to, of course she'd grow to love him like a companion.
"If you're going to be that nihilistic, then I have a counterpoint."
"Of course you do," she responded with a huff.
"He wasn't a manifestation of your loneliness, but rather, the embodiment of how alone you aren't. He was reminding you that you are capable of friendship and to turn the hell around because there was literally a boy who would love everything about you if you gave him the time of day. If Odin had been a cycle or transport like Shiva and Bynhildr, the message would've gone right over your head. Hell, you would've burned rubber speeding away from me."
Odin pulled onto his back legs, whinnied and then took off faster than I thought possible. He dashed smoothly across the plains in a way a chocobo never could.
"See. He agrees," I shouted over the rush of wind and stomping of hooves.
Lightning remained silent, directing us toward the crystal pillar.
We arrived at our destination and I dismounted first. I reached out to help Lightning down, but neither of us was prepared for what Odin did. Without warning her, he dissolved back into her chest. She released a noise somewhere between a yelp and a grunt as she dropped into my arms. She'd retained her seated position, legs hooked over my arm and one hand balanced on my shoulder. She froze, holding her breath, as I carried her in the most damsel-like fashion known to mankind.
"Sorry," she mouthed, no sound coming out at first. "I don't know why he did that."
The deep breaths she took pressed into my chest. Unlike when she wore her armor, I could practically feel her vibrating with nervousness. Lightning kick-a-monster-in-the-face-Farron was embarrassed that I was holding her.
"He's temperamental?" I supplied.
"Right." She touched at the location of her brand, wedging her hand between us. "Put me down."
"Right," I said, tossing her.
She landed gracefully.
The big, grand elevator, the bi-planet-locomotor. The several hours long lift that somehow didn't have elevator music. Seriously, somehow no one thought to include any form of entertainment on the only means of travel for anyone outside of the military.
"Thanks for letting us on without papers," I said to Alyssa.
"No big deal," she said, tapping away at her tablet. Motorized carts followed the patterns she traced with her finger. In an orderly fashion, they rolled their way onto the platform.
Lightning leapt onto one; it teetered but regained its levitation. Alyssa forced the cart to do a little spin, making Lightning unexpectedly laugh. Immediately she shut her mouth, diverting her focus to her weapon. She balanced the blade on her lap and began meticulously cleaning it.
"We're almost done in Paddra, so I jumped at the chance to move up my transfer. The sun was too damn hot. Elevation that high felt like the sun was an arm's length away. I'm ready for Phoenix's mild weather." Alyssa strutted over to one of the two seats available in the car we'd taken.
Half of the elevator cars were for human travel. They were luxurious with onboard meal service and loungers. The other cars were designed for bulk transfer of goods between planets. These cargo holds had two seats equipped with seatbelts for whatever sad sack was monitoring the transport. Alyssa tapped the seat beside her. Lightning seemed perfectly comfortable perched on her crate.
"Do you mind if I ask a question?"
"Shoot," Lightning said, picking dried blood from a gear in her gunblade.
"Well, Noel and your sister are, by definition, paradoxes. I can anticipate when and where they will arrive. Also, they travel by 'gates.' I've managed to predict it before."
"That's not a question." Lightning flicked blood and other gunk in her direction.
"Correct. But you guys show up whenever you feel like. With no warning. So, you must move about differently."
"Your point?" We'd barely begun the trip and Lightning's patience was tapped out.
"If you can go whenever and wherever you want, then why did you need me to take you on the elevator?"
"That's my business." Lightning ended the conversation by closing her eyes and lying down. With her legs dangling free over the crate, she pretended to sleep.
We had a valid reason for the pathetic means of travel, and honestly, it wasn't Alyssa's business even if she were doing us a favor.
Lightning was Etro's Guardian, and relied on her for the big things, like temporal rifts. Etro was also a Pulsian goddess. She didn't have jurisdiction on Cocoon despite however many millennia had passed or how many of the old gods had been forgotten.
Thus, Lightning could really only move around Gran Pulse and Valhalla. She hadn't revealed this to me when she'd offered to let me see my father. The gift she was giving me was more precious than she'd let on.
"If you intend on shutting me out, this ride is gonna suck."
"Ignore her," I said, fighting with the buckles on my seat. "Confined spaces make her antsy."
"They do, do they?"
"They don't," Lightning snapped, clearly not napping.
"Then what's the problem?"
"Nothing."
Alyssa pulled headphones out of her bag and began listening to music.
I climbed out of the seat I'd just struggled to strap myself into. "It doesn't sound like nothing," I said, leaning against Lightning's cart.
She began to whisper, "I don't like trains, because the last one I took led hundreds to their deaths. I don't like airships because you run the risk of a fal'Cie biting it and suddenly people are sucked out the side. And here we are on an elevator without a shaft. If something goes wrong, we are going to plummet into the cars beneath us and everyone is going to slam into Pulse and die." She kicked her foot nervously.
"Lightning, we're going to be fine. Especially coming from someone who jumps into pure darkness and thinks magical, electrical doorways are safe. Why are you so nervous? What happened to your devil may care attitude?"
She peered at me through slitted eyelids. "I can keep myself safe. I can even keep you safe. But we've involved a civilian."
"No harm will come to her."
"She's important to the Director. If we create a paradox where she kicks the bucket because I'm too inept to get us to Palumpolum, then we're shit out of luck."
"Look at me, ok?"
She opened her eyes wider and glared.
"Trains aren't all that bad. I've had some of my best memories on those. Airships aren't bad either. We've been on several and only one got eaten and we all survived anyway. Lastly, if something happens to this elevator, I'm sure you'd find a way to save us in the nick of time. So, don't be a worry wart just for the Director's sake." The last part left my mouth a little more sourly than anticipated. "What's your deal with him anyway?"
Lightning took in a breath. "If you saw things in detail as I have, you'd understand." She reached for my hand like she'd done ever since that night she'd burst into my apartment. I doubted she'd ever tell me the full extent of what Etro had shown her.
"Now that we're here, pay up," Alyssa said, reaching into her hip pack.
"Excuse me?" Lightning drew her hand behind her back, reaching for her sword. What exactly did she plan on doing, bopping her on the head with the hilt?
"Hold up, are you seriously charging us? Your passage was free, it's not like any of us used tickets," I said, sidling between the two of them.
"I don't want gil. But you owe me a favor." Alyssa revealed the item she'd pulled from her bag. She unfurled a tape measure, then let it wind back with a snap. "I made this," she said, poking Lightning's sleeve. "I've been designing a material that can endure the time fluxes of paradoxes. While the Director has worked out how to keep our bodies fresh in a time capsule, I'm still hesitant about modern fabrics." She treated Lightning like a mannequin, rotating her, bending her limbs, popping her collar. "Picture it. We wake up in the future. I make to sit up, but then all of the sudden my clothing practically disintegrates, falling off in frayed clumps. All while a team of scientists are documenting our crowning achievement. No thank you. I am a professional." Every other observation ended with her making a note in her tablet. She also muttered to herself, solving whatever dilemmas were currently preventing her from completing the fabric.
"Woah," I shouted, when Alyssa turned her attention to me.
She started gruffly patting me down. When I turned to Lightning for sympathy, she merely shrugged and placed her hand on her hip.
"When do I give you these clothes?" The woman wasn't even looking at me, too busy writing down my measurements.
"That's cheating." I pushed her measuring tape away from my inseam.
"It's not cheating, it's science," she replied matter-of-factly. "These pants barely fit you." She yanked at my waistband, which was in fact too tight.
"They're the Director's."
"You're beefier than him." She brought her finger to her mouth in thought. "That means he has the potential to not be so willowy."
"Guys don't like to be called 'willowy.'"
"But they like 'beefy'?" Lightning interrupted, huffing to make her point.
Alyssa circled the tape around my chest, pulling it taut. "Is 'thin' better? The Director is older than you, but he doesn't have as much definition in this area."
"What does muscle definition have to do with anything?" There was a sharpness to Lightning's question.
"It means I'm not doing my job as his assistant. I need to be stricter with his diet and exercise regimen."
"He can handle that himself. He has other stuff he'd rather worry about." Then I peered at Lightning, trying to read her expression. "And I don't like 'beefy' either. Ok. So, can we stop talking about me so that Alyssa can finish her job?"
"Which I am obviously failing at. You know what, I'm going to enter this data as his 'optimal specs.'"
"That's enough." Lightning's eye twitched, and then she snapped. Grabbing me by the belt, she yanked me away from Alyssa. "He's not your little experiment. I appreciate the outfit, so by all means measure me left, right, upside down, sideways, whatever. But these clothes are the Director's, so you don't even bother using these numbers to make him his own uniform."
"Yeesh, fine. Debt paid," Alyssa said, pocketing her tape. "Catch you in the future."
The crates followed her as she swanned her way to a waiting Academy truck.
"You think we revealed too much?" I crossed my arms and looked for some sort of shuttle. Alyssa had assured us that, dressed as we were and me looking like their damn leader, no one would ask questions. We must have missed the last one, since only civilian taxis were hanging around. Based on the sign with the giant Academy logo, the next ride to Palumpolum wouldn't be hovering in for another hour.
Lightning only growled, and left to find a food vendor for a snack.