Chapter 1

Deifiers of Fate

The train carrying the citizens of the seaside city of Bodhum was descending fast. The tracks carried the train through a series of tunnels and chasms that made up the lower end of Cocoon toward the shell of a once prospering city toward the lowest point in the floating sphere. The hundreds of people aboard the train sat in silence, heads lowered as they brooded over their fate. Each compartment of the train was packed with people sitting thigh to thigh, knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder. Adults sat jammed on the benches, children sat on the floor, shoved between their parents legs.

The atmosphere was grim. Each and every person on the train aside from the PSICOM troops who patrolled each car every few minutes proudly boasting the gun they held, was headed for exile. Exile on Pulse! It had been pronounced by Primarch Galenith Dysley, just after Bodhum's annual fireworks, that because of the activation of the Pulse Vestige thirteen days ago, the awakening of a Pulse fal'Cie and the sighting of a branded Pulse l'Cie in the city of Bodhum that all civilians within the city were to be exiled to Pulse to live their lives there instead of wracking havoc upon Cocoon. PSICOM, the sanctum's military division, was deployed to the area of Bodhum immediately to assist in transporting the contaminated civilians to the train that would carry them to their new lives. Along with the civilians, the Vestige containing the Pulse fal'Cie was to be removed from Cocoon immediately.

Each civilian wore a white robe that marked them as an exile with a hood that covered their face. They also were handcuffed and linked to the person they were sitting next to, to create a long chain. It was almost as if the citizens were put on a leash and treated as animals. Of course, the people didn't go easily, but the sanctum continued to tell them that it was for the greater good of Cocoon. Their sacrifice would allow Cocoon and the millions of other citizens living there and unaffected by Pulse influence to continue to live in peace and prosper. It was then that the unwilling people were forced to stand in line with guns pointed at them by the PSICOM troops as they dressed in the exile robes and boarded the train for their new home.

The whole ruse was known as "The Purge" as the sanctum had named it. They were righteously purging Cocoon of all Pulse threats and allowing peace to continue. The citizens of Bodhum remained reluctant, and rightly so, for they had always been taught that the world below was like hell on earth. How on earth were they supposed to live in a world like that? Primarch Dysley had ensured they could survive on Pulse now that they had been placed under Pulse influence by being near a Pulse fal'Cie and its newly created l'Cie. The other people of Cocoon that lived in places far from Bodhum, like in the city of Palumpolum and Eden pushed for the purge. The purge didn't affect them, so why should they care? If Pulse threat was removed from Cocoon, they could continue their lives as if nothing ever happened. And so, as the train descended along the tracks toward its destination where the exile would take place, the people of Cocoon, soon to be people of Pulse sat in silence and wondered what their fate had in store for them.

There was one person sitting on that train in particular who wasn't brooding over her bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, nor was she wondering what her future had in store for her on Pulse. She was running over the last bit of her plan in her mind, she just needed to wait for the right time to strike. She kept her head low and her handcuffed arms on her lap as the PSICOM troops passed her, as she didn't want them to catch on to any expression her face might give away. She, conveniently, wasn't attached to the person sitting next to her, as the troops didn't have enough time to strap everyone together, due to the next train arriving to take the next batch of exiles. "It's going to be difficult to get them while their off guard…there are so many of them…and I don't have my weapon…if I don't time this just right, I'll never get out of here…and Serah will be…." She was thinking to herself when the person next to her nudged her with his elbow.

"You sure about this?" he whispered, his voice deep with concern.

She didn't even look at him when she snapped "Be quiet!" quietly through her clenched teeth. She worked so hard to let some person she just met on the loading dock at Bodhum ruin this.

He ignored her and grinned. "Best of luck…"

She was about to scold him for almost drawing attention to them, when the train crashed through the gate to their destination, a place known as "The Hanging Edge" a once prosperous city on the outer edge of Cocoon. During the war that ensued against Pulse hundreds of years ago, Cocoon's shell was cracked just above where this once prospering city was. The crack allowed Pulse entities into Cocoon with ease and the city was abandoned. Even hundreds of years after the war, the people of Cocoon never repopulated the area because the sanctum filled their heads with the idea that Pulse could strike again any day and that would be the first place to be attacked. Eventually the place was pronounced off limits to civilians and it became the place where the Purge would take place.

When the train crashed through the holographic gate to the Hanging Edge, it caused the car the woman was sitting in to lurch a bit, throwing the PSICOM guard off balance. "It's now or never" she thought as ran from her seat. Being free from the other passengers proved to be more convenient than she thought. Thinking quickly she ran at the guard who was already off balance and rammed him into the side of the train using all her weight. The force of being knocked into a wall made him drop the small device he had in his hand to the ground. Without even blinking the woman stepped on it with the heel of her boot and smirked when she heard the cracking of plastic and the fizzing of the wires being severed. Almost instantly her handcuffs, along with the handcuffs of the other passengers popped open. The passengers who were attached to each other also became free.

The man that had been sitting next to her stood up immediately and cried "She did it!" as the other passengers began to scramble from their seats and look for a way off the train. They knew deep down, that even though the Primarch had told them they could survive on Pulse, something about exiling a whole city full of people seemed a little off.

Almost instantly everyone in the train began to rip off the white exile robes they were wearing. The woman who had set everyone free in her car stripped her robe to reveal a tall muscular body. Her strawberry blonde curly hair hung over her left shoulder. Her eyes were icy blue and full of determination. Yes it was true she just freed the exiles on the train, but that was far from freeing them, and she had much more important plans than escaping this hellish purge.

The other PSICOM officials on the train had been alerted and a handful of them stormed into the car, guns in hand ready to fire at any resisting exiles. Without a moment's hesitation the woman grabbed the gun off the guard she body checked into the wall and began to fire at the oncoming troops. The other exiles cowered together behind her as if she were some kind of guardian.

When the last solider fell, lifeless to the floor of the train the woman lowered her gun. The man that had been sitting next to her came up behind her and said "Hey, they all want to help" referring to the exiles who were cowering behind her.

She snapped "Good for them". She walked over to the door of the train car and forced it open. Peaking her head out she saw that fighting between the sanctum and the exiles had begun. Trains were derailed throughout the crumbled city and the exiles saw this as a chance to fight back from being kicked out of their home. "If there's this much fighting going on…Snow and NORA must be here" she thought as she looked for a way to stop the moving train.

The man that had been sitting next to her was behind her again. "Your name is Lightning right? Funny name, but I'm not complaining" he held out a sword that was folded and compacted in the shape of a gun. "I'm Sazh if you forgot. This is yours right. I saw you hand it in on the purge train platform. I found it in the other room. They have a bunch of weapons in the compartments on the train."

Lightning turned to look at him. This was the first time she took the time to actually get a good look at her annoying companion. He was dark skinned with a large tuft of curly black hair that sat atop his head. He wore a large green overcoat and pair of khaki jeans with a gun holster at each hip. She had remembered that he had to turn in his guns on the platform too, but when she looked she saw that each holster had a gun. More than anything, however, she was surprised to see a chocobo chick pop out from the afro on his head. It looked at her and let out a soft tweet as if to say hello. She was about to ask him about the chick that was using his hair as a nest when the train lurched throwing the exiles to the ground. The harsh sound of steel being forced against itself filled the air around them. "So much for finding a way to stop the train…" she thought.

She looked out the door and almost wished she hadn't. The sanctum had called upon the use of their mechanical weapons to back them up in fighting the exiles. Many lay dead, their bodies, scattered on the highways of rubble. The train had been stopped abruptly by another overturned train that was sprawled across the tracks ahead of them.

Sazh whispered to Lighting, "We best use this opportunity to run?"

Lightning took her beloved weapon and shoved it in the sheath that hung from the belt at her waist. She looked at the man named Sazh and said a quick "Thank you" and ran out the door without as much as a glance back. She had business to attend to, and with any luck, she'd be able to achieve the seemingly impossible and return home to her normal life with Serah. True, they'd have to find a new place to live since Bodhum, their hometown was now under complete jurisdiction of the sanctum and restricted to Cocoon civilians…but that was a small price to pay to have Serah back.

She stepped off the train onto a piece of crumbling highway. Somewhere deep within her heart, regret was creeping in. "If I hadn't been so rude to Serah….If I had been more supportive…NO!" No, she couldn't let doubt set in, not with such an important mission ahead. She couldn't lose her head.

Overhead the sanctum had begun the disposal of the Vestige. Several sanctum carriers worked as a team to begin hauling the large vestige across the space above the crumbled city. With a determined look on her face she set off to where the Vestige was being hauled. She needed to get aboard it before they dumped it on pulse. With one final deep breath, she took off running toward the Vestige.

Sazh who had been observing her from the train car saw her run of toward the sanctum soldiers approaching. "Away!" he yelled "I meant run away!" The purge exiles gathered behind him looking for direction. Sazh pointed them in the direction they needed to move before the sanctum troops could catch up with them. He on the other hand, was curious to follow this mysterious woman. The chocobo in his head trilled as if to ask him what he was doing walking the wrong way. "Don't ask chcocobo. She just intrigues me. I need to know why she willingly boarded the purge train. I guess we just can't catch a break, can we chocobo?" he asked as he ran off after Lightning toward the Vestige.

Oerba Dia Vanille thanked the Maker for her luck. Because of her fiery red pigtails, she stood out in the crowd at Bodhum…and because she stood out, she was placed on the first purge train. It just so happened that a Cocoon terrorist group was also on this train and made busy work of hijacking it as soon as it left the Bodhum station. The terrorist group took the PSICOM guards by surprise and managed to tackle most of them to the ground before they realized what was happening. One of the terrorists must have taken over the control car of the train because it came to an abrupt stop just after they passed gate to the Hanging Edge.

"Okay people let's move it. If we stay here any longer, we're dead" a young woman working with the terrorists called out. In her hand she held the remote that locked their handcuffs in place. Vanille felt her handcuffs pop open freeing her wrists. In a rush of panic the exiles rushed for the nearest door.

Though Vanille knew that being exiled to Pulse wasn't the worst thing that could happen, she had a bad feeling about the purge. Something about the sanctum rubbed her the wrong way, and thus the plan of the purge seemed off to her. When she stepped off the train she knew why.

The exiles were told they were to be taken to the Hanging Edge where PSICOM soldiers would be waiting to escort them on ships that would deport them to their new lives on Pulse. What greeted them was not an escort, but rather troops armed with guns. They weren't here to be escorted to their new lives on Pulse, they were here to be executed.

Eyes wide with petrifying fear, Vanille looked at the barricade of soldiers; the line of guns pointed at her and froze. "Well…this is it…it's for the best I guess…" she was ready to close her eyes and accept her fate when someone grabbed her arm and pulled her to the ground just seconds before the soldiers opened fire on the exiles. She was pulled behind a piece of concrete that had been torn up from the street out of the line of fire. All around her, exiles fell to the ground, blood spilling in the street.

Vanille looked to her savior and saw an elderly woman with graying hair that stopped short just below her earlobes. Her eyes were almost as green as Vanille's. "Are you okay miss?"

Vanille looked at her and smiled. "I am now. Thank you"

"How old are you? You look no older than my boy here" the woman said softly. "Where's your family."

"I'm nineteen Ma'am. I was in Bodhum alone, when the Vestige was discovered to have a fal'Cie in it, I don't have anyone." Vanille replied.

"Well then you stay with me honey, we'll get out of this alive. Then you can go home and be safe with your family" The mother replied.

Other purge trains were starting to arrive. That's when the massacre began. Once the trains stopped moving on their tracks throughout the Hanging Edge, PSICOM troops boarded them and proceeded to execute the exiles. The sound of gunshots mixed with the anguish of screams. Blood began to stain the roads and the trains. Vanille, the kind mother and her son, along with a handful of other exiles, remained crouched behind the concrete rubble. They hadn't been spotted by PSICOM troops yet, but it was only a matter of time before they were.

Vanille was about to peek around to see if there was any other way to get out of the predicament they were in, when a tall man with dusty blonde hair stepped in front of her. He must have shed the white robe the exiles were forced into, because he wore dark black boots, a pair of worn pants and a huge white overcoat. His hair drifted in front of his eyes under the black hat he had jammed on his head. He looked at Vanille and grinned. She could see he hadn't shaved in a few days for his chin was covered in stubble.

"Emigration?" he questioned "it's more like they brought everyone here to be murdered."

Two other men and the woman who had set Vanille free on the train joined the man. Vanille knew immediately that these people were the terrorist group that hijacked the train. Though she didn't agree with the workings of a terrorist group, they were keeping her and the other hidden exiles alive, so sticking with them was probably the best way to stay alive.

"Snow I'm sorry I couldn't be any help" the younger of the two men said to the man with the stubble who appeared to be the leader of this terrorist group.

The man named Snow looked at his younger companion and said " Maqui, stay with these people. Your goal now is to protect them. We'll clear a path, you protect them." He turned to the other man "Gadot, you're with me up front." He turned to the woman and said "Lebreau, back us up"

The group charged at the troops ahead with guns they had picked up off the fallen soldiers in the train. Vanille remained crouched with her hands over her ears as she heard more gunshots and more screams. The kind mother that had saved her put her arm around Vanille. "Its okay dear, we're in good hands. They will take care of us."

Vanille wished she could believe her, but she was shaking with terror. All of this was happening because of the threat of Pulse. Thousands of people were being murdered in cold blood because of the fear that Pulse may have contaminated them. Why couldn't the sanctum just let these people live on Pulse? Why did they have to murder them? She was about to start letting the tears that had been welling up in her eyes flow, when the man called Snow and his partners returned to their hiding spot.

"Is everyone okay?" he asked.

Everyone remained silent.

"You can relax" Snow assured them. "We won't let you be deported to Pulse, and we won't let them kill you either. "

After another awkward silence, a man from the back of the hiding exile group stood up and said "I'll help you". Slowly more and more people stood up volunteering to help ward off the PSICOM troops. Lebreau and Gadot handed out guns they had taken from the fallen bodies to the volunteers.

"Those who want to fight follow me and Gadot" Snow announced. "I have two guns, who wants them?"

The kind mother stood up and held out her arms for a gun. Snow looked at her with an eyebrow raised. "You sure?" he asked. She smiled and nodded. "Mother's are tough you know." Snow laughed and handed her the gun which seemed too big for her to hold, but surprisingly she grasped it with ease.

"Okay, we're gonna go fight up front. Those who aren't fighting stay with Lebreau." He took the other gun he was holding and held it out for the mother's son to take. "Here hold on to this…just in case".

The boy shook his head and backed away. "No" he whispered.

Snow sighed. He didn't have time for this. "Who wants to hold on to this?"

There was silence. After a moment's pause Vanille spoke up. "I'll do it."

Snow raised his eyebrows even higher when he looked to see a young curly red pigtailed girl looking at him expectantly. "You sure?"

She nodded. "Yep."

Snow smiled. "Fine but be careful with it."

"I will" she whispered.

Lebreau lead the exiles in hiding along a road that took them to lesser traveled areas where confrontation from PSICOM soldiers would be less likely. She wasn't sure exactly of how to escape this place, but her first priority was to get the exiles to a safer location. Snow led the group of fighters along the main path cutting down any soldiers that stood in their way. As they fought, Snow noticed that many more trains had arrived and the fighting had gotten more intense. His train wasn't the only train fighting back. Other exiles were fighting the soldiers and desperately trying to find a way out. He also noticed that the sanctum began to carry the Vestige across the sky toward the place where they'd dump it back on Pulse. He needed to get aboard that Vestige no matter what.

While he was distracted looking at the Vestige being hauled off, there was a huge explosion. PSICOM decided to stop playing around and pull out bigger weapons. A large helicopter shot its cannon fire at the highway that snow and his people were standing on. He heard a sickening crack as the highway began to crumble and crack in half. The exiles began to run toward either side of the highway that was beginning to fall and sink toward the despairing darkness below them. People were sliding off, clawing at the concrete desperately to grasp onto something to no avail.

Snow felt himself start to slide. He dropped the gun he was holding and fell to his knees and began rolling toward the darkness. He clawed for something to grasp onto. Just as he was about to tumble over the edge, his hands found a pipe sticking raggedly out of the concrete. He was about to pull himself up onto solid ground when another body tumbled passed him. It was the mom that insisted on following him. He instinctively grasped onto her arm before she rolled off the sagging highway into the darkness. Snow now hung, one hand on the pipe, the other holding onto the mother.

The mother looked at him and said "Please….my son….take him home"

Snow's eyes went wide. "You hang in there you hear! I'm not about to let go of you!"

She smiled "It's okay…" Her eyes closed and snow felt her body get heavier. Her hand was slipping slowly out of his grasp.

"NO!" he screamed. "I will not let you go" But it was getting harder and harder to hold her. Her limp body was now swinging over the dark edge.

The PSICOM helicopter took another shot at the highway as if to finish the job. The shockwave of the hit was too much for Snow. He dropped the woman. "NO!" he cried out in pain as he watched her fall into the darkness. Another wave of attacks hit, this time Snow lost his grip and fell. The last thing he remembered before falling into the darkness with the rest of the exiles he rescued was the image of the mother's unconscious body falling through the air.

Unbeknownst to Snow, the mother's son watched in horror from another highway not far off, as the whole scene unfolded. He watched this cocky man take down hoards and hoards of PSICOM troops, but in one stupid moment of basking in his own glory he lost everything. All those people lost their lives. And his mother….that son of a bitch dropped her to save himself, and even then he couldn't do that. They all fell into the darkness below.

He couldn't move. His green eyes were filled with horror and anger.

Vanille stood next to the young boy and watched the scene before her. Her eyes welled up with tears again. All of this was too horrible to watch. She needed to get out of this place. Anywhere but here. She shook the boy by his shoulders. They needed to move, or else they too would be spotted by the soldiers. Lebreau and the other exiles were already far ahead searching for a safe place to hide. "Come on!" she cried "We have to move"

He looked at her with sadness glazed in his eyes but remained silent.

"Snap out of it!" Vanille yelled "If you want to stay alive, we need to get out of here. "

He looked at this red haired girl, is face was contorted as if holding back tears. After a few more moments of silence he nodded. He wanted to speak, but his throat had closed. Vanille grabbed his hand and pulled him down the road after Lebreau. If they were to get out of there alive, this would be their best chance.