Pieces out of Place

"I can't... I give up..." Snow panted, clutching at the grass as he made one last attempt to crawl to his feet, "This is the end... I see... a light..." He raised a hand, reaching out in front of him. He let out a choke of pain before collapsing to the ground, unmoving.

"Yes!" Came a triumphant voice from above Snow's limp body, "I am victorious! The hero wins again!"

"What are you talking about! I'm the one who struck the killing blow!" Another voice stated quickly.

"No you didn't! I totally got him first!"

"No, me!"

"Me!"

"Boys!" Snow interrupted, now sitting up, staring at the paired source of arguing voices. The two pouty faces of his twin sons looked back at him, "You're on the same team! Both of you defeated me, that means you're both are heroes!" The boys looked at each other, then at their father, their frowns turning into wide, cheeky grins.

"That was some pretty awesome teamwork too." Snow admit, referring to the 'killing blow'. Syd had ran at him head on, practically jumping on him. It was enough to have sent him stumbling backwards—or would have if Noah hadn't positioned himself behind his legs on all fours. The set-up and timing had effectively managed to knock Snow off his feet. The maneuver had caught Snow completely by surprise.

"How'd you come up with something like that?"

"Auntie Light taught us!"

"Yea, Auntie Light taught us!"

"Ah!" Snow let out a hearty laugh, "Of course she did."

"Boys!" A voice from the house called. The three of them looked to see Serah just outside the back door, "It's time for lunch. Come on, come inside and wash up." The twins cheered before running towards the house.

"Mom! Mom! You shoulda seen it-"

"We totally kicked dad's butt, Syd jumped at him-"

"Then Noah took out his legs then-"

"Alright, okay, okay," Serah nodded with a smile, gently pushing them into the house, "You can tell me about it after you wash up, come on." She turned, seeing Snow brush himself off as he approached her. She pick a few blades of grass out of his hair and giggled.

"What? It was two against one!" He defended.

"Mmhmm."

"They had training from Light!" Snow added desperately. This only proved to make Serah laugh harder. She silently thanked the fact that neither of them had had their AMP devices on them that morning. As the twins in question came bounding back into the kitchen to sit at their seats, the small pinkette gently pat his arm as she moved to place dishes of food on the table. Snow reached for a bit of food on his own plate but had his hand slapped away by his wife. She took his plate to the table, gesturing towards the sink with her free hand.

"So are you heading out with Gadot and Maqui this afternoon?" Serah asked, taking her own seat at the table.

"Yeah, they headed out a little earlier to scout." Snow answered, joining them, "They'll probably be around after lunch to pick me up."

"Can we come?" Syd spoke up, a forkful of food inches from his mouth.

"Are you going hunting?" Noah asked, a forkful of food in his mouth.

"Maybe when you're a little older, Syd." Serah answered as Snow chuckled to himself, "And don't talk with your mouth full, Noah." Both boys pouted but quickly returned to eating. She turned back to Snow, "Hunting again so soon?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure what it is but our traps have either been not working or destroyed completely." Snow explained through bites of his lunch.

Serah poked at the food on her own plate. The wildlife around the village had never been a real threat but the Neo Oerbans had decided to take precautions anyway; a few strategically placed traps, regular light patrols. It'd only been recently that they'd started forming hunting parties.

The smaller creatures that were easily caught by their traps or fought off by their patrols were becoming scare. Instead, larger and more dangerous creatures had begun appearing near the village—creatures were too large for the traps to be effective against. There hadn't yet been an incident that couldn't be handled but the unusual change in the ecosystem was slightly concerning.

A loud knocking on the door brought Serah back to the kitchen table. She moved to get up but Snow stopped her, getting up himself and going to answer the door.

"I'll get it, hun." He said with a smile, taking a quick bite of food before getting up and heading to the door. He opened it to find Gadot and Maqui, "Hey guys, you're uh, a little early but give me like five minutes and I'll be-"

"Snow we uh..." Maqui started but trailed off, glancing over at Gadot who looked deep in thought. Gadot was as buff as ever, now standing slightly taller than snow. Which always made it amusing when he was around Maqui. The younger of the two hadn't been so lucky with his height over the years. Snow looked between them.

"What's up?" After another moment without an answer, he gently punched Gadot's arm, "Hey, what's going on, man?" The large man turned to him quickly, as if snapped out of a trance.

"While we were scouting, we noticed a borgbear running off with one of our traps-"

"Not like... running off with it more like... it got caught up the trap got detached and it was running-"

"It was running off with one of our traps." Gadot interrupted, shooting a glare at Maqui.

"Right... y-yeah," Maqui said with a sheepish grin, "But so we chase after the the thing because I mean I figure if we got it back, the trap could still be useful and y'know it'd be one less trap to replace-" He was cut off when Gadot knocked him upside the head.

"So we chase the thing for a while and we get to this clearing, don't remember ever seeing it before." Gadot continued, "It wasn't a nest of anything I've ever seen before."

"Wasn't a campsite." Maqui piped up quietly.

"Okay, okay." Snow put up his hands to stop save Maqui from another blow to the head, "So you found a weird clearing..." he trailed off, looking between them expectantly, "...so?" Another strange look between the other two men.

"So, this." Maqui answered before taking something out of his pouch. He placed the contents in Snow's hand. When the blonde saw it, his jaw clenched up. He looked back up at the two. His eyes demanded an explanation but in realizing that they probably didn't have one—couldn't have one, he looked back down at his hand.

"Snow?" Serah's voice came from behind him causing him to quickly clench his fist, spinning around and angling the closed fist out of her view, "Oh, Gadot! Maqui!"

"Serah!"

"Hey Serah!" The two men greeted her with smiles and waves.

"Hey, hun," Snow said suddenly, moving into the house, "I think I'm gonna have to finish lunch a little later." He grabbed his jacket from a hanger near the door.

"O-Oh, is everything alright?" She asked.

"Fine, it's fine, everything's fine." Snow assured her, quickly slipping the jacket on and the contents of his fist into a pocket, "There's just uh..."

"Something happened to one of the traps." Maqui continued quickly, "We figured we need to move as soon as possible to deal with it." Snow shot him a look of thanks for the cover.

"Okay well, be safe." Serah said after a moment's hesitation. She quickly kissed Snow on the cheek before he left the house following his two friends. He turned and gave one last wave before continuing down the path quickly.

Once out of sight of the house, he slowed his pace slightly and pulled the crystal shards from his pocket. Examining them closely, there was no denying it. It was the same type of crystal as Serah's tear from 10 years ago. Lighter and more fragile, it was significantly different to the crystal that was used to build Crystallinus. But what was it doing so far from the city? The only source of that particular crystal that Snow knew of was at the base of Cocoon—hundreds of feet in the air.

"We weren't sure what to make of it." Maqui's voice brought Snow back to reality. They'd made it to the village center where a large hunting truck was parked. Gadot was already climbing in, "We came back as soon as we could, oh sorry for interrupting your lunch-"

"It's alright." Snow said, patting him on the back, "I'm glad you did." Honestly, Snow didn't know what to make of the crystal fragments either—but he was damned sure he was going to find out. Pocketing them again, he climbed into the front passenger seat next to Gadot. As they headed out of the village, Snow accessed the truck's communicator.

"Who you calling?" Maqui asked from the back seat.

"A friend." Snow answered, punching in a command to open a communication line to CRYSIS HQ.

A/N:

*****OMAKE*****

Maqui: Who you calling?
Gadot: Y'know the drill, if there's something wrong in the neighborhood, who's he gonna call?
Snow: stfu.

The twins. Are awesome. Don't deny.