A/N: This one's got a few more words on her than usual - make that 1k more. Consider it my apology for being late. I also tried explaining a few game mechanics - such as librascopes and datalogs - in a bit more detail, and not really what they actually are in-game. Take a look for yourselves, and tell me if I did alright! :)
Also, very very VERY special shoutout to Jedi MayukiDaAWESOME for reviewing! Love you hon!
Chapter Sixteen – The Vile Peaks
The first thing Lightning was aware of when she awoke was the smell of smoke.
As she opened her eyes, blinking rapidly to clear them, she looked around, trying to figure out where exactly they had landed. She tried to stand, and was forced to crouch as her head swam.
Holding a hand to her temple, she looked to her left and saw that the two boys – Hope and Galen – had landed side-by-side. To her right were Sazh and Vanille, who had landed practically on top of each other. Obviously, they had been thrown out of the aircraft when they had crashed.
As her head slowly cleared, she reached out a hand to the two boys. "Hey…" she said, shaking them slightly. Hope did not stir, but Galen seemed to respond. His eyes slowly opened, blinked a few times, and almost immediately tried to sit.
"Ah, dammit," he groaned, gingerly laying his head back onto the ground for a moment.
Lightning swiftly lifted her head, alarm bells ringing in her mind, and immediately noticed two pantherons on a ledge above them. Acting on instinct, she whipped out her Blazefire Sabre as they met up with two more pantherons to her right and ran to meet her. She sprang forward.
She heard swearing behind her, and in her peripheral vision saw Galen sprint forward, sword in hand.
…
Vanille awoke to the dual sounds of growling and the crackling of fire. She slowly got to her knees and looked in front of her – and her hands went to her mouth in shock. Frantic now, she shook the warm body underneath her. "Hey! Wake up!"
She turned, wildly seeking anyone else, and crawled over to Hope, shaking him as she did Sazh. "You've gotta wake up!"
Hope groaned, groggily shaking his head, slowly sitting up as Sazh did the same. Vanille pointed forward. "Look!"
She shot up and sprinted forward to join Lightning and Galen. "Hey, slow down!" called Sazh as he and Hope followed after her.
"Ready!" said Vanille, pulling out her weapon.
"Gotta keep you kids safe, right?" said Sazh.
Lightning tensed, waiting. Swift as her namesake, she darted forward, her blade turning to parry a pantheron's swiping paw and angling it sharply to the side. It cracked, and the pantheron jumped back, whining in pain.
Around her, she could hear the sound of bullets firing from Sazh's gun, see the dim firelight glinting off of Galen's weapon as he, too, battled his own adversary; she heard the sound of spells rushing past her, seeking out the pantherons from the two mages behind her.
Studying the boy in front of her, Lightning surmised that while Galen had talent, he wasn't fully trained in offense. He seemed prone to leaving either side open to attack, and didn't pay enough attention to his surroundings.
Which was why she wasn't surprised when she noticed a pantheron in her peripheral coil to lunge at Galen's unprotected right side.
Moving on instinct, she darted to the side, using her blade to catch the pantheron mid-lunge in a very risky move that left her back exposed. Moving quickly, she flicked her blade over and left, sending the bio-weapon flying in that direction.
"Watch yourself," she hissed in Galen's direction before sending a thunder spell in the direction of the pantheron she had thrown. It hissed and turned to dust.
Looking around her, she noticed that everyone else had picked off the other pantherons as well. The battle now over, she sheathed her gunblade.
Vanille groaned and moved off to the side, collapsing to the ground. "Glad that's over!"
"Yeah, no kidding," Galen agreed, shooting a small, nervous glance over to the stoic soldier. Feeling tired, he sat next to Vanille. Sazh did the same as Vanille made noises of comfortable satisfaction.
"Man, I'm beat." Lightning walked past him, and Sazh looked up at her in shock. "What, no break?"
"They're tracking us," said Lightning in a clipped tone.
"I know that. I know that, but we aren't soldiers!" Sazh waved a hand at her. "We don't have your kind of stamina!"
"You've got enough to complain," she countered. And with that, she continued walking.
"Oh, that's – ! Forget it!" Sazh seethed.
Hope started walking after her, then paused, unsure of himself. "I think, um…"
Sazh stuck a thumb in the direction Lightning took. "I'd stick with her if I were you, kid."
"Later, then," Hope replied, now running across a large piece of metal serving as a bridge over corrupted water.
Vanille sighed, and got up, her break seemingly over. "Come on. Let's get going."
Galen nodded, and stood.
But Sazh wasn't so sure. "Get goin' to where, exactly?" he asked, his eyes drawn to where Hope currently was, his way blocked by a particularly large generator in the shape of a thick gear. "The whole of Cocoon's against us," he continued, as both Vanille and Galen watched Hope climb determinedly over the offending piece of machinery. "No matter how far we run, there's no escape. That Cie'th clock, it's still a-tickin'."
"There's still time," said Vanille. "You give up too easy, old man!"
Galen smiled, and tried not to laugh.
"I'm not givin' up," Sazh argued. "But there are some things that you just can't change. A kid like you would not understand."
"Yeah, I'm a kid," said Vanille sarcastically. "I don't understand!" She turned away, arms crossed.
"You both have valid points," Galen interrupted, "but I'm with Vanille on this. No point just waiting here for trouble to find us. Lightning – that's her name, yeah? – she's right, we should keep moving."
Sazh nodded, and slowly stood. "Well, I guess we can be fugitives together." He had too much momentum, and bumped into Vanille. "Sorry," he hastily apologised.
"We ready?" asked Galen, the smile from before returning.
"Ready!" said Vanille, a beautiful smile forming on her face. She then proceeded to push Sazh down over the bridge, giggling all the while.
And Galen trailed behind them, thinking about how beautiful Vanille looked with that gorgeous smile on her face.
As they crossed the bridge, however, a rolling sound alerted them all to the generator Hope had climbed before, which was now rolling down a bridge to their right. Unable to support its weight, the metal structure collapsed, taking the generator with it into the water.
"Bugger. Hope must've shaken something loose when he climbed over the thing," said Galen disappointedly.
Sazh groaned. "End of the road."
"But at least it's not the end of the line!" said Vanille happily, pointing to their left, where another path trailed off from their own.
Sazh nodded, and they continued onward.
And as they walked, Vanille looked up at the lights above them, thinking back to another night when the city lights above them were just as bright and there was hope in her heart…
She had been at the Bodhum fireworks festival. She had heard that the fireworks had magical properties, that they had the power to grant wishes. And so she looked up at those fireworks, and she had prayed. Prayed for a miracle.
Far from the growing crowd, Lightning stood vigil. She had been tasked with security this night, but at the moment her attention was not on the crowd in front of her. Her gaze was instead aimed at the colourful fireworks out near the coast of her hometown. She briefly wondered if the rumours were true, and those fireworks did have the power to grant wishes…
"You look dreamy, Farron," a jovial voice from her left said, catching her off guard. She quickly turned and saw her superior, Lieutenant Amodar, grinning at her.
He was a plump fellow, with always a smile on his face. Those in the GC respected him not only for his demeanor, but also for his determination, that which allowed him to climb through the ranks. People trusted him.
"Wishing on fireworks, were you? And you call yourself a soldier!" he joked, his grin growing wider.
Lightning chuckled self-naturedly along with him, and gave him a relaxed solute. "Sorry, Lieutenant. But I really don't think guard duty is my calling, sir." She bowed.
Amodar chuckled and brought her upright with a poke of his finger to her forehead. "Well, lucky for you, your shift just ended. Pack it up and go home."
Lightning furrowed her brows. "But, sir?"
"PSICOM found something in the Vestige nearby," Amodar explained, his tone now serious and hushed. "They don't want the Guardian Corps here stepping on their toes." He laughed, once. "I'm sure you heard about the accident over at the Euride Gorge energy plant, and how it has the PSICOM lads in a tizzy." He motioned towards one such soldier in front of a building a few hundred yards over. Lightning noticed the gun held tightly in his hand, his finger on the trigger.
"Yeah, more 'incident' than 'accident'. Something Pulse-related?"
Amodar smiled and smoothly dodged the question. "You're taking tomorrow off?"
It worked. "Sir, for my birthday, sir. My sister, she…insisted on it."
Amodar chuckled. "Twenty-one, huh? Maybe it's a good time to send off that letter of recommendation for officer training." He placed a hand on Lightning's shoulder.
Her eyes widened. "Lieutenant…"
"You're past due for a promotion, Farron. Think of your sister, and your future." He turned to face the fireworks once more. "And, uh, keep your nose out of trouble."
"Out of PSICOM business, you mean."
Amodar nodded. "Yeah, nothing good will come of it." He sighed. "Nothing but grief."
Then, suddenly, he smiled, and pointed at the fireworks display. "Whoa, look at that one!" He laughed.
As he made more exclamations of excitement, Lightning stood next to him, and pondered his words.
As Lightning looked back on that fateful night, she realised Amodar must have been trying to protect her, to keep her from anything that might have gotten her in a bad way. 'Nothing but grief,' he'd said.
How right you were, Lieutenant.
As she walked through the mountains of metal and debris, she remembered a time when she had been placed here on duty. The Vile Peaks were brimming with Pulsian terrors that had hitched a ride when the fal'Cie had tried to patch up Cocoon's shell, and had left these piles of detritus behind. Now free, the machinery were left to find replacement parts and wander into civilian territory. She had been tasked with finding and deactivating these Pulsian menaces.
Footsteps behind her made her pause. Only one? … light footfalls. "Just you?"
"For now, I guess," Hope replied, slightly breathless. "Should we wait?"
"They'll catch up. Eventually."
As they explored the rubble and ruin around them, Hope tried to make small talk.
"All the junk around here came from Pulse, didn't it?"
"Yes," Lightning replied.
She lowered to a crouch, and motioned for Hope to do the same. "Look," she breathed.
Two bioweapons made their patrols. These looked like pantherons, yet were not. They had different cosmetic appearances, and were yellow.
"Can we sneak past them?"
"No dice. Thexterons' hearing is designed to detect what the human ear can't," she replied.
"So, they're the hunting dogs, right?"
"'Fraid so. Stay back." Tensing for a moment, she darted forward to engage one of them in combat. Hope decided to distract the other with magic, which worked better than expected. He found that thunder and water magic worked the best on them, so he stuck with those spells. When the thexterons were nothing more than dust, Lightning darted over to the right, where a silver chest sat, waiting to be opened.
"Are these sphere things used for material storage?" Hope asked.
"You mean, do the military use them to store materials?"
Hope nodded.
Lightning affirmed his question. "They're usually designed only to open to a registered soldier's biometric data, but the ones we keep finding are always unlocked." She motioned for him to come forward, and, nervously enough, he did.
"Try opening this one. I haven't touched it yet."
Hope nodded, and brought his hand close to the whirling sphere in front of him. As if in reaction to this small gesture, the silver sphere spun to face him and opened a hole just big enough for his hand to fit in. Curious now, he reached inside and pulled out some kind of scope set into a metal band.
Hope looked it over. "What is this?"
"It's a librascope. It automatically streams enemy data into the datalog – this thing," she said, opening her pack and showing him a small pad. "It's designed to withstand wear and tear, as well as all the elements."
"Whoa…" Hope's eyes were wide.
Lightning's lips twitched. "Let's keep going." As they continued walking, she continued in her explanation. She explained that in team mission situations, individual librascopes can be synchronised to a single datalog, so everyone can have access to the same information, and plan accordingly. She also explained that this was how she was able to pinpoint enemy weaknesses before now.
Their journey through the Peaks continued in this fashion – in enemy encounters Hope would use his librascope to search for enemy weaknesses, and found that Lightning was on to something – it pointed out what spells Hope needed to use in order to gain the upper hand in battle. He also placed himself in charge of medication – specifically healing. Because he also noted that looking through the librascope at his allies – in this case, Lightning – allowed him to check on her wellbeing, and send a few cure spells her way when she needed them.
Continuing along the path, they came across a giant piece of rusted steel, a circular grate stuck midway down the shaft. Lightning and Hope used this grate to make their way to the other side, where the path wound its way uphill.
This stuff must be what's left over from the scrap the fal'Cie took from Pulse to repair Cocoon.
Hope tried to be as diligent as possible – this was why he noticed when Lightning became stiff, caught midway between a standing position and a crouch. She crept forward, and Hope followed suit.
"What's up ahead?" he asked quietly.
"Watchdrones." Lightning sprang forward once more, engaging the drones in battle.
Hope followed close behind.
It was during one of these fights that Hope learned that he had somehow picked up a new ability.
They had found a Pulsian bot that had made it to Cocoon with the mounds of detritus. None of Lightning's strikes were doing much to it – it seemed only to be egging it on. The bot only had one long arm, reinforced with rusted steel plates, which made a hit with one of them hurt.
It was walking slowly over to Hope, and, as it wound up to swing its arm, Hope held up his arms in a futile attempt to shield himself from the attack.
It swung – and hit a blue-green barrier in between them.
Hope stared, dumbfounded, at the pale blue-green barrier in front of him. It looked like it was made up of reasonably-sized hexagonal pieces stuck together in a one-sided concave shape. He reached out to touch it, and felt nothing but air.
"Hope, what are you – ?" shouted Lightning before she, too, noticed the peculiar thing in front of him. She blinked, then her face hardened as she turned to face the Pulse soldier – which had changed appearance completely.
It looked as if its whole body had moved upward without its height changing to expose its glowing core. Its head was swivelling from side to side as if panicked and confused.
Lightning sent a thunder spell at it before moving in to sever the core from the rest of the machine, and Hope sighed in relief as the soldier shut down, becoming nothing more than a pile of metal and scrap before folding into ashes and floating away.
Lightning sheathed her gunblade before walking over to Hope, and they both watched as the barrier dissipated.
"That was a Protect spell, wasn't it?" Hope asked.
Lightning nodded. "Not bad."
A few hundred feet away was a sharp descent into what seemed like a dead-end. Lightning and Hope jumped down.
Dead-end. Guess we have to go back…
Hope, now breathless, sat down on a piece of rock jutting out from the ground that had a flat surface. It wasn't the comfiest seat ever, but…
"Any port in a storm," he murmured quietly, sighing as he sat.
Lightning, meanwhile, seemed to be pacing back and forth before the cliff-like face that marked their dead-end. It seemed to be made up of pipes and circuits, some of which occasionally spurted a shower of sparks.
"Can we get through this way, you think?" Hope asked. "You…know where you're going, right?"
"I've been here on missions before."
"Missions?" Hope fought the suspicion that threatened to cloud his opinion of the woman in front of him, though he had to ask. "Nothing to do with the Purge, though?"
"The Purge is PSICOM's baby," said Lightning, disgust colouring her tone. She turned and walked towards the cliff face. "Our military is split into two arms." She climbed up onto a relatively stable bit of rock as she continued. "The Public Security and Intelligence Command, known as PSICOM, and the Guardian Corps." She turned to face him once more. "I was Guardian Corps, Bodhum Security Regiment."
"…Wait, but I don't get it." Hope stood, and took a few steps over to her. "If you're not PSICOM, then why did you board the train?"
"For Serah."
"Join the end of the line!"
At Bodhum station, a train was docked and ready to go. On the platform, there were two lines – one for the donning of the Purge uniforms, the other to board the train.
"Attention Purge deportees. Follow instructions, and stay in your lines. Personal belongings will be returned upon arrival."
Suddenly there was a commotion as a scared couple tried to run.
"You! Halt!"
The couple rounded the bend, and at that point two more soldiers had joined the chase. And then they simply gave up, and opened fire.
The civilians screamed. Others speculated.
"Were those warning shots?"
"Did they just shoot someone?!"
"Do not leave your lines! This is for your own safety!"
Lightning walked to the front of the line, straight up to one of the PSICOM officers in charge of the debacle. He looked at her badge. "Huh? What's the GC doing here? This op's under PSICOM direction."
"So direct me," she told him. "Let me on. I wanna be Purged."
He leaned closer, and spoke in a hushed tone. "Only civs get Purged. Sanctum staff and soldiers are exempt."
Lightning handed him her gunblade. "Then I quit."
He growled. "Line up!"
She did as was told, and joined the end of the line. Hurried footsteps told her someone had followed close behind.
"'Scuse me. Hey, lady." The man looked around and, when she didn't reply, he continued. "What gives?"
"I volunteered."
"Really? You don't look ready to go quiet into that good night."
"You want quiet, you'd better take the next train."
The line moved forward. And Sazh looked after her a moment before following. "Oh, now I really wanna see what you're up to."
"I had to rescue Serah before they transported the Vestige to Pulse, and out of my reach" Lightning explained. "My only chance to save her was to join the Purge."
"You're telling me you got on that train so you could save your sister?" Hope laughed once, self-deprecatingly. "That's crazy. I could never do something like that."
"It's not a question of can or can't." Lightning's tone was hard. "There are some things in life you just do."
"Easy for someone like you to say."
Lightning sighed, and jumped. Up and up the cliff face she jumped, until, in almost no time at all, she was up to the top.
"Lightning!"
She jumped up and over, and, ignoring her ally's call, pushed forward.
Hope walked, slowly and dejectedly, back to where he was sitting. A heavy feeling of rejection built in his stomach. "She left me…"
A/N: Another chapter up! Thanks again to everyone who's read and reviewed; even if you're not reading anymore, your reviews gave me the warm fuzzies and and inspired me to keep going, even when I didn't feel the best. I owe you guys the world!
Also, since I might not have mentioned before, I'm going to try to reinstate my update schedule of once a week, starting the Sunday after next. Hope to see you guys then!
OH! MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! ^_^