"...What?" The double's words held little meaning for the group. But urgency took over instead of further confusion.
"I said get out of my way!" Lightning charges in again.
She dodges the slash by the darker Luna, sliding under the arc of the weapon and making a mad dash into the hospital. The darker double doesn't seem too intent on chasing her, instead affixing her gaze on the others, particularly Luna. She raises her daemonic blistered arm and concentrates a burst of black flames at the palm before shooting it at them.
"Get down!" Hope shields Yeul with his own body.
Luna, out of sudden instinct, summons her trident and casts protect. The light magic clashes with the dark energies and dispels it soundly.
"Etro, what is the meaning of this...?" She asks with a note of confused desperation, unable to take her eyes off her seemingly evil double.
"A divergent form..." Yeul-Etro's lips barely move as she speaks as though breathless at the development, "That is you... from a different time..."
"Huh?" Hope looks up, "You mean like a paradox? Something that doesn't belong in this time?"
They don't have much time for conjecture as the dark Luna lunges forward with her blade swinging. Luna imbues the head of her staff with dia magic and deflects the swing. The strike was either really heavy or she was way out of practice by now. The oracle is forced back a few steps.
"Her target is me...!" She shouts to Hope and the Oracle goddess, "Go!"
"A-are you sure?!"
"Just go!" She lobs a swing of her light magic at her double's chest, knocking her back into some bushes planted in the courtyard periphery.
Hope seems guilty as he goes to obey, running after Lightning with Yeul-Etro. Luna grips her trident tightly as she readies herself. Her darker self is picking herself up, utterly uncaring of anyone else at this point.
"I cannot fall here... I will see Noctis again...!" Luna says that in self-assurance.
"...A love..." Her dark self gives her a look of near contempt, "It was a lie of the gods."
"What are you talking about?"
"It was all part of the traitor's plan. We were merely sacrifices," Dark Luna points her sword at the light Luna, "You, a pawn, cannot see that. Thus, the superior of us shall overturn the accursed fate granted by the Bladekeeper."
"Blade... keeper...?" Luna's eyes widen. That was an alternative alias for Bahamut the Draconian. Before she can ponder that, her dark twin's blade flares with black flames and she charges.
…
Within the darkened halls of the hospital, Lightning runs like a madwoman. Serah had given her the room number in a text, up on the sixth floor. The elevators seem to be malfunctioning, as is the entire electrical grid here. There is an ominous hum and sound of electricity acting up as the shimmer of the checkered curtain becomes more prominent.
There are cracks seen in the spatial barrier as clawed arms of the Anubys attempt to rip open their rifts and snatch at her. She gives some of them a cut and costs them their fingers as she doesn't miss a beat in her ascent.
"Serah...!" She calls out in vain.
"Lightning!" Hope calls out breathlessly to her, carrying Yeul-Etro on his back. He is much less athletic and has to stop to rest near the third floor.
He gets a brief flash of insight in his mind, seeing the claw of an Anubys claw at him from below. With a fatigued jump, he manages to evade that dreadful future and pushes himself to keep running despite his burning lungs.
"I, ah... uff... w-was that … the future?"
"...Supposed to be..." Yeul-Etro says with a small pant, "I let you see it to avoid that death... It seems... the future can be changed... Time is … unraveling..."
"Hey, don't push yourself! That eats away at your life force...!" Hope says with worry.
Finally, Lightning steps foot on the sixth floor. Immediately, she makes a dash for room 605 in the intensive care unit. The spatial corruption here seems to be causing the very building to collapse into nothingness. Gritting her teeth, she leaps over a large claw that swipes at her, though it rips her jacket.
"SERAH!"
"Light!"
Hearing that familiar voice respond instantly puts the vigor back in her step. She leaps up the last few steps and barrels into the room. Inside, she sees Serah at Snow's bedside. Snow, unconscious and pale, is hooked up to various machines. The room's edges seem to be near coming apart.
"Ugh...Serah, go! I'll take him..."
"L-Light, is this... really happening?" Serah looks to her with frantic tears.
"It'll be ok," Lightning says through gritted teeth as she roughly shoulders Snow's weight, ripping off the EKG stickies and IVs, "We just gotta get out-"
Before she finishes her sentence, a claw rips out of the checkered rift nearby, grabbing Serah. Before Serah can even scream, she is yanked beyond the veil.
"SERAH!"
No, no, no...
Below Lightning's feet, she feels the building sway. The weight of Snow reminds her she cannot simply jump into the bygone rift. Cursing, she runs out to the hall, lugging his dead weight. Just then, Hope and Yeul-Etro arrive in the nick of time as the building seems ready to split in two.
"You take Snow!" Lightning throws Snow roughly at Hope, who barely manages to catch him. She then leaps down into the rift growing on the building floor.
Lightning had never ventured beyond the checkered cloth. Back on Nova Chrysalia, the curtain was the division, a border that kept the living and dead separate. The Anubys and Set were monsters that came from the boundary to snatch away the living and take them to the other side. It flutters like a layer over the material world... Yet it is only another layer before the true Unseen Realm.
In the rift appears to be a torrent of chaos tinged with uncontrolled flows of energy, much like the scenery back in Orphan's Cradle. As she feels herself become weightless, she sees the vague, ethereal forms of the chaos monsters forming around her. Amid their writhing shapes is Serah.
"Kuh!" Lightning narrows her body to try and increase her fall speed. She extends her hand for her sister, who also reciprocates, "SERAH!"
"LIGHT!"
"How touching..."
Lightning looks with a start at the eyes beyond the veil that sneer at them frantically reaching for each other.
"Light...!" Serah's voice calls her attention, "You have to go... or you won't be able to get out!"
"I'm not... leaving you...!" Lightning grunts as she manages to grab her sister's wrist. As she pulls the other into her arms, she realizes Serah's body is shimmering, "Wha..."
"He's going to destroy everything, Light... You have to stop it. I..." Serah swallows uneasily as they both seem to be in freefall, "I have Etro's eyes, remember... He's not going to stop here..."
"Serah...?" Lightning can feel the breath stilling in her lungs as Serah's form suddenly vanishes from her arms. In its place is a shimmering, familiar red blade...
Crimson Blitz? No...
"Ultima..."
Lightning grabs the familiar weapon and feels that old surge of ultimate energy, one to rival the gods. In her head comes Serah's fading voice.
"I'll be right here with you... Light..."
A look of rage and sorrow forms as Lightning realizes the weight of the weapon. With a snarl, she wills herself to fly back out of the rift, slashing all the monsters that would impede her like butter.
"Move it...!"
She slashes her way out of the rift just as Hope and Yeul-Etro descend down a floor, in time to witness the returned Savior burst from the gaping breaks in their spatial surroundings.
"Light...!"
"Lightning..." Yeul-Etro looks on, almost breathless.
Lightning lands before them, a solemn light in her eyes, "You guys might want to hold on."
It is easy work for her to fly them all down the collapsing building. Down below, however, there is little to no debris. The falling building seems to be disintegrating in pieces so nary a rebar even clatters below. Lightning lands with Hope, Yeul-Etro, and Snow.
"Wait, Light, where's Serah?" Hope asks fearfully.
Lightning doesn't look to him as she casts a quick Cure on Snow. She couldn't remember the last time she used it. It might have actually been Serah's power. The big idiot groans a bit as the stab wound closes.
"... We need to go," Lightning says tersely, "Bhunivelze is here."
An explosion of light bursts out from the nearby courtyard. They all turn heads to see the darker Lunafreya skitter back as the light Luna sends another barrage of light magic.
Lightning leaps at the darker form. The dark Luna blocks her strike, although the floor beneath cracks heavily. Her eyes glow red and dark miasma issues forth. A blast of holy sends her flying from under Lightning's blade before she can do anything though. The Savior looks to Lunafreya, who has some bloody cuts on her but otherwise is managing fine as she approaches.
"...Thank you for the assistance, Lightning..." She gives a small sigh of relief.
"Don't thank me yet... We still have to stop doomsday... again," Lightning looks up as the last of the collapsing hospital vanishes, leaving ruins of about five floors down and the courtyard. The ghastly effects of the curtain seem to vanish for now as a silent and ghastly calm settles.
"Now that you have your powers back, this will be much more manageable," Yeul-Etro approaches.
"Yeah... right after you tell me why you're pretending to be Etro," Lightning looks to the girl pointedly, "You're just Yeul, aren't you?"
"Huh?" Luna looks to the two of them, "What do you mean?"
"Etro died, but I guess her memories passed on to the next goddess of death," Lightning points at Yeul, "Which would be you. But you aren't her. Same as how Serah just has her eyes."
"... We are Yeul and we are Etro," Yeul says with indifference, "Just as how Etro carried the memories of Mwynn."
"... Whatever," Lightning clenches her fist, "If Bhunivelze wants a fight, he'll get one. I killed him once..."
A distant rumble can be heard in the night after their fiasco that just ended. An omnipresent voice reverberates through the air and Luna's eyes widen as she sees the unmistakable shards of soul crystals glitter in the air.
"Return the worlds to me... The ruler of all creation..."
The sound grows with frightening volume and suddenly the party finds themselves lifting off the floor, along with nearby fixtures and even some buildings. Then, like a vacuum turned on, they all start to gravitate slowly, inevitably, towards a gaping hole in the sky the size of a moon. It takes them a few seconds to realize the hole is some sort of mouth, hiding hideous aberrations lying in the shadows.
"That's... Bhunivelze...?!" Luna pales. It is vastly different from what she had seen at the Gate.
"He looks... wrong..." Hope looks back down to see they have floated several meters off the floor, "Agh, crap, he's trying... to eat us all?!"
"He is going to devour this world..." Yeul looks up, "He has been... corrupted... from within his deathly stasis..."
"Ah, has he been daemonified...?!" Luna asks fearfully.
"... But due to his interferences, and time slipping here..." Yeul's hand glows softly, "I may have... just one last Crux..."
"No, I'll kill him right here...!" Lightning growls, "I'm not letting him have this world!"
"You cannot! He is not the same as he was last!" Yeul shouts in warning.
Lightning zooms ahead, unheeding of Yeul's warning. There is a sudden crackle in the air as a series of Ruingas form like deadly baubles in the air, surrounding her. In the blink of an eye, a force able to snap a building in half slams her back down to the ground with a Giga-Graviton.
"UGH-!" Lightning feels multiple bones breaking and blood burst from her body due to the sheer pressure of magic. It feels stronger than before... Either that or she is out of practice.
"Lightning!" Hope cries out, "Shit... w-what can we do then?"
"We will need to recoup elsewhere," Yeul concentrates hard and there is a sparking noise as the rings of the Crux begin to form. They seem clearly damaged and whirr like a machine on its last legs.
"I-Is this safe?" Luna looks up and balks at the sheer volume of stuff being sucked up around them. Lightning's bloody and bruised body is being lifted once again by spheres of Ruinga to shred her apart before pummeling down again with Giga.
"C-Cure!" Luna hastily directs her trident at Lightning, healing her of the grievous wounds, though it does not disrupt the enemy castings.
"Don't try to run away, my dear daughter... You will join your brothers soon..."
"No... I won't allow it..." Yeul pants as the Crux materializes further, "Mwynn... tasked me with the balance..."
"Ugh... no, wait..." Lightning groans a bit against the multiple Ruingas.
"No matter where you go, I will find you... and any world that opposes me."
The Crux bursts open with an ear-shattering ringing sound. Streams of time flow freely out as Yeul passes out and falls in. Luna follows, drawn in by the Crux's opposing gravity. She looks with horror back at the world being left behind.
"Light!" Hope struggles to hold onto Snow as he reaches for Lightning, still trapped in the magic.
"Go! I'll come..." Lightning strains to shatter the magic with her own counters of Aerora. From the corner of her eye, the Crux flickers and sweat beads down the side of her face.
"You cannot escape me, my goddess..."
"LIIIGHT!" Hope feels that stubborn thing in his chest wanting to burst. It's a familiar feeling...
An Aeroga assist blasts through and seems to suck Lightning into the Crux as it is on the verge of collapsing. Lightning looks in surprise to see Hope having cast that magic. He himself, and Snow, are too far out of range now and begin to be pulled away by Bhunivelze's howling vortex.
"Hope!" Lightning gasps, "No!"
"I know you can do it, Light...! You can beat this guy...!" Hope gives a pained smile in the face of demise.
Lightning looks in horror as the Crux closes with a clang on her world, now gone.
"HOOOOPE!"