Roads Less Traveled Part II
"Vanille! Move!" Fang screamed, running as hard as she could at the smaller girl. She barely managed to knock Vanille aside before a giant claw slashed at the ground where she'd just been. Rolling to a stop, Vanille half on top of her, Fang groan and coughed as dirt filled her lungs. In her arms, Vanille was shaking.
"Fang?"
"How many times have I told you?" Fang frowned as the both of them scrambled to their feet, "Don't just stand there like a ninny in front of it. You gotta keep moving! Confuse it!"
"Like this?" Vanille grabbed Fang's hand and yanked her out of the way of another lash of a claw. The taller of the two shrugged and grinned before nodding at the orange-haired Oerban.
The creature that had been attacking them—or at least attempting to—growled lowly and began to circle them. It was rather large, rather vicious looking brown bear. The two Oerbans had been hunting it for a while now and had finally caught up to it only to fail in their attempt at a surprise attack. Fang would have to find Vanille a less troublesome weapon because the situations the damn thing got them into were just one or a hundred too many.
"Okay, I'll distract it, you use that damn fishing rod to try and slow it down."
"It's a binding rod!" Vanille stamped her foot in a huff, clutching the weapon to her chest. Fang barely managed to duck and roll out of a leap from the bear.
"Okay! Okay! binding rod! It's a binding rod!" Another swipe at her caused Fang to jump away awkwardly, missing the landing and ending up on her side, "Now would you please use it on the bear!"
"Okay!" Vanille immediately perked up and pulled the rod back. Fang aimed to moved out of the bear's reach but found her leg caught on a tangle of vines. She shook at the grasp but couldn't break free. The shadow of the bear's claw brought her attention back up to it.
"Uh.. any time now, Van!" The dark-haired Oerban shut her eyes tight and prepared for the blow but it never came. Instead there was a loud howl and a large thump as the bear hit the ground near her. Peeking through on eye, she saw the giant creature struggling against it's entanglement by Vanille's hooks and wires. She broke into a grin and let out a loud whoop of triumph, "Alright! Van! That's how ya do it!"
"I caught it! I caught it!" Vanille jumped up and down, giggling almost manically. Fang watched the girl, her grin only growing wider at the small celebration dance. However, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the bear had somehow gotten to where it could stand on it's feet. Vanille had caught it, but now she had to keep it.
"Vanille! Watch out!" Before she could finish, the creature let out another bellowing roar before it yanked hard on the wires, lifting Vanille clean off the ground. The smaller Oerban yelped as she tried to land and remain on her feet while the bear continued to thrash against the bindings, "Van! Van, you gotta-" She winced as the younger girl hit the ground on her side with a yelp, "-you gotta get a better grip on the fishing pole! Don't let go!" Fang instructed, yelling as she continued to escape her own entanglement.
"I already told you, Fang!" She stopped as she saw other girl stamp her foot again, digging the heels of her shoes into the dirt, "It's called-" She heaved the rod back hard, "a binding rod!" The tug on the weapon tightened the constraints around the bear, causing it to yelp and fall over again to the ground. It continued to struggle until it began to realize the more it did, the tighter the wires around it got. Fang's jaw dropped in amazement as she saw the look of utter defeat in the animal's eyes.
After a long few moments of deafening silence, both Fang and Vanille began screaming.
"Did you see that? Fang! I got it! I totally got it-!"
"I can't believe you just did that! You were all like Raaaar and it was all like Graaaawr-!"
"I did what the elders told me, plant my feet and pulled with everything I had-!"
"That was totally amazing! I knew you could do it, Van!"
During the celebration scream-fest, Vanille had made her way over to Fang and helped get her loose from the grasp of the vines on the ground. The both of them then inched their way towards the bear. It was still breathing, and still hadn't lost it's presence of raw, physical power. But the look on it's eyes and the heavy rasps on it's breaths told them it was no longer and immediate threat.
"So? How was it? Told ya I'd get you the best birthday present ever!" Fang had a toothy grin on her face as Vanille turned to her, an equally wide expression of satisfaction on her face.
"Definitely the best!" Vanille threw her arms around Fang in a hug than nearly threw both of them off their feet again.
"Who says you're not old enough to hunt." Fang scoffed as they pulled apart, "Forget what the elders say! You're twelve now! That's makes you practically a teenager!." Fang beamed with the pride of her own age of fourteen years, "Besides as long as you're with me, we can do anything!"
Gasping for breath, Lightning's eyes shot open. She was met with a dim flickering and a soft buzzing noise. As her senses adjusted to the quiet chaos, she heard other coughs and more movement from around her.
"Light?" Hope's voice reached her first. She sat up, reaching up to touch her neck which felt as it it'd been snapped. She found Hope by her side seconds later, hair tousled, jacket ripped but otherwise without injury, "Light, are you alright?"
"What... happened...?" The pinkette asked as she was helped to her feet. Other than the stiffness in her neck, she didn't appear to be harmed much either, "Where are the others?"
"Over here!" She was answered by Dajh who was helping Fang out from under a part of the truck with the help of Vanille. The two CRYSIS officers ran over to help and lifted the sheet of metal away so Fang could crawl out. Coughing, the raven-haired woman got to her feet, dusting herself off, also more or less unharmed. The truck was not as lucky as it's passengers, however. The entire body had been crushed, half of it ripped open. The back of the truck had twisted almost completely off and three of the wheels were missing, the last one still spinning, barely hanging off the axle.
"Well... that was fun." Fang said with the rolling of her shoulders and stretching of her arms, "Let's not do that again."
"That memory..." Hope looked between the two Oerbans, "That was yours."
"Well obviously." Fang rolled her eyes, "C'mon, you couldn't tell from my impish grin and my advanced, developed combat skills?"
"You were on the ground with a plant around your leg for most of the fight." Vanille said quietly with a devious smirk on her lips. The others all raised their eyebrows at the taller of the two.
"Hey! I saved your butt from that first attack, if I hadn't pushed you out of the way, you woulda been bear-food." She motioned to the CRYSIS Personnel, "They all saw it, they were there."
"That's right, we were there..." Lightning said, ignoring the humor of the bickering between the two, "Just like before."
"Um, I hate to interrupt this lovely drive, crash and burn down memory lane but..." Dajh spoke up, raising his hand, "...Where are Eve and Alva?"
"Help!" As if hearing her name, Eve screamed from somewhere on the other side of the rubble. The other 5 ran around at the beg for assistance. Eve was kneeling while Alva was sitting on the ground, breathing hard, coughing up a storm. It was clear the girl was in pain and even more obviously trying to hide it from her sister. Luckily—in a way—Eve was too busy worrying about helping Alva to breath to notice, "She can't breathe! Vanille-!"
"She needs more of the Dissidium Elixir." Vanille stated as if reading the Lance Corporal's mind. She checked her pouch and found the vials she'd prepared were still intact. She quickly made her way over, opened one and helped Alva down the entirety of it. After a few more coughs and convulsions, Alva began to calm down, relaxing against her sister, nodding her head slowly to Eve's quiet yet frantic questions of whether or not it'd helped.
"Is everyone else, alright?" Hope quickly scanned the others one by one. He noticed cuts and bruises, but other than Alva's need for the Dissidium Elixir, no major concerns.
"Oh sure, just great!" Dajh spoke up again, "I mean, this stuff happens to me all the time, y'know, being run over by a giant fal'Cie—a fal'Cie that last time I checked, was supposed to be extinct!" The sarcasm in his voice was tinged with panic as he turned to Vanille, "And you!" He pointed, "You took on a giant bear while you were twelve!" The Oerbans just grinned sheepishly.
"It's impossible-"
"I'll say!" Dajh interrupted the pinkette in a short outburst. Upon receiving four rather varied looks, he cleared his throat, motioning for Lightning to continue.
"The Subterra's been empty for a decade." Lightning shook her head, beginning to search the rubble for a working datapad, "There's no way Atomos could have returned without anyone knowing about it—CRYSIS has this area on sensors."
"Uh, hello? Were you not in the truck that Atomos just rolled over?" Dajh spoke up again, "Literally!"
"Pulse-shift." Hope said, moving to help Lightning search.
"Say what, now?"
"Pulse-shift." Hope repeated, "From the data we gathered yesterday, we found the walls of cloud seem to be sweeping out from the center of the storm—which is located directly over the Faultwarrens." He motioned quickly for the others to start salvaging what they could from the crash, "Each wall or wave is laced with what we thought was lightning at first but it seems to be more than that. It's not only capable of frying computer systems like it did with the shuttle, but it also seems to affect the 'circuits' in the brains of humans."
"So... we were hit by a cloud and struck with lightning?" Dajh was struggling to fully understand the explanation, "We're underground."
"Which is why I thought we'd be safe down here." Hope continued, "Each wave also sends out an intermittent pulse of energy with enough to effect things physically."
"The blasts against the side and back of the truck." Fang muttered, pulling out a broken door and peering into the body of the truck. Hope nodded, tossing aside some more of the rubble.
"I didn't think we'd be effected through the ground." Hope mentioned, apologetically, "Nor did I think the energy pulses were also able to cause the time shifts and memories."
"We still don't know mmuch of anything at this point." Lightning cut into the conversation, pulling a crushed case from the debris, "And we never will if we sit around waiting here."
"Light we just got run over by a mechanical god, we've lost our means of travel and probably half the equipment we brought with us-"
"It was a Pulse Shift memory. We salvage what we can and continue on foot." Lightning responded straightforwardly, taking a break from her search and attempting to open the comm. device integrated into her CF gauntlet. All she found was static and a flickering mini screen above it, "Damnit." She cursed under breath.
Hope, checking his own device and finding the same result. He concluded that their position under ground and proximity to the storm-cloud had only worsened the functionality of CRYSIS-issued equipment; equipment that relied on energy from the Pillar.
Dajh, who had put aside his shock for the moment, had found a small box under a pile of debris and taken a look inside. He found it full of small power cells. Each were about an inch and a half long and maybe as thick as his thumb. Noticing the behavior of his superior officers, he made his way over to Hope. The First Lieutenant was confused at the boy's actions but didn't stop him as he raised the arm sporting the CRYSIS device. Taking 2 of the mini power cells, Dajh quickly began examining the underside of the device. Soon he'd found a small section that opened to reveal and extremely intricate maze of wiring and circuitry.
"Dajh-?"
"Don't move." The cadet accented his instruction with a gentle tug on the Hope's arm. As he carefully took a long tube of what looked like light blue liquid from the middle of the wiring, the surrounding wiring began to flicker and fade. He then replaced it with the two Oerban power cells. Hope was surprised to find they fit perfectly. However the device remained dark, powered down. Dajh hummed in excitement and curiosity, continuing to investigate the complex circuitry.
Lightning had noticed the two and had made her way over, observing the scene with interest. Dajh produced a small multi-tool from his jacket pocket and began disconnecting and reconnecting several wires. Hope glanced over at the pinkette. Neither of them had ever taken quite as close a look at the inner workings of of the devices as Dajh was presently doing, so neither were sure whether they to stop the boy or not. As a minute or so of silence past, it became obvious they'd silently decided to let Dajh continue.
"Aha!" The boy whispered loudly as she snapped two wires into place. There was a snapping noise as the circuitry flickered to life. Hope could feel the power being restored to the device as Dajh quickly replaced the cover of the opening. Plugging in instructions, the First Lieutenant was able to bring up a scan of the surrounding area. Both officers turned to look at each other, then at Dajh.
"What?" The boy said with a small shrug, "I have my moments... be them good or bad." He mumbled, recalling his earlier freakout.
"Could you do the same with my CF device?" Lightning asked, holding up her wrist. Dajh merely grinned and held out a hand, motioning for her to give him hers. With one other look at the First Lieutenant, she met Dajh's request.
Still sifting through the crash, Fang tossed aside another sheet of metal to investigate what was underneath. Jutting out of a pile of rocks was the corner of a case. Removing what debris she could and grasping the exposed surfaces of the case, she pulled it hard, yanking it out from the rubble. The force ripped the top half of the case off and sent the bottom flying a few feet away, the contents of which, flew out and skid along the ground until stopped by a boot.
Fang's eyes drifted upward, still clutching the top half of the case, to see Eve standing, staring down at what looked to be the Assault-Lance in rifle-mode. The Oerban also noticed the Lance Corporal was holding her lance in one hand. She immediately felt a pang of heated hostility in her chest. Eve looked up from the weapon on the ground and held up the one in her hand.
"I'll trade you." With that, she threw the lance at Fang who tossed the fragment of metal in her hands to catch it and flip it around before holding it out in front of her.
"I personally woulda stuck with this if I were you." She couldn't help the taunting words leave her mouth—not that she'd particularly felt she had to.
"No thanks." Eve gave one last, brief glance at Fang before kicking the Assault-Lance up with her boot, catching it and unfolding it into lance-mode, "I... prefer my toy." Having handled the weapon with ease, grace and swiftness, the Lance Corporal had reminded Fang of another, pink-haired soldier. The eerie similarity made her frown more than the verbal counter to her earlier taunt.
"Careful you don't hurt yourself with it."
"You should probably worry more about yourself," Eve continued to counter, unable to resist the urge, "Considering the rate of which you manage to lose your own weapon and whatnot."
"I don't need my weapon to break that dinky toy in a second." Fang threatened lowly, spinning her lance behind her, her grip tightening.
"You're making this about size? Really?"
"You little-"
"What's going on here?" The both of them immediately backed off when Lightning came around from the side of the crash, looking between the two. Neither of the dark-haired women responded, they remained locked in a glaring contest that could put Lightning's own icy stare to shame.
"You seem pretty confident, sure you should be walking around without your sister."
"She's fine, Vanille's with her." Eve emphasized the fact that she had no issue trusting Fang's smaller companion and vice versa. Fang all but growled, taking a step forward.
"Fang! DeFluo!" The pinkette raised her voice, breaking the both of their lines of sight by stepping directly between them. Her gaze ended up on Fang, looking at the Oerban for an explanation. Fang just shrugged.
"She started it."
"What are you? Five?" Lightning shook her head in disbelief, "We're miles underground, even further from the nearest break to the surface and you're picking fights?" With the pinkette's gaze on her as she continued to lecture, Fang felt like she'd been slapped in the face. Biting her tongue—literally—she raised a hand, scoffed and moved away shaking her head, muttering expletives as she went.
"Subordinate two, friend zero." The Oerban made one last dig before disappearing back around the mountain of debris. Lightning was left, pinching the bridge of her nose, willing the impending headache to go away.
"And you." The Commander turned to the Lance Corporal with a frown fierce enough to cause the younger officer to take a step back, "I expected better control from you." She walked over the Eve, grabbing the lance in her hands and refolding it, "And the A-L prototype is not a toy." She noticed the almost child-like longing look the other woman was giving her as she'd taken the lance away, "Don't make me regret choosing you to test it." She handed it back to Eve, "Understand?"
"Understood, Commander."
"Lightning." Lightning corrected as she stepped towards the remains of the weapon case, "And you're forgetting this." She grabbed and held out a gauntlet matching the colors of the Assault-Lance. Eve walked over and took the gauntlet from the pinkette. Upon seeing the Lance Corporal with the large rifle in one hand and gauntlet in the other, she realized one other thing.
"We don't have a holster for the rifle-mode." Eve looked at the rifle in her hands, then at the holster hanging behind Lightning. She met the pinkette's gaze which was full of thought.
"Lightning?" Eve questioned as the silence began to draw out.
"Come with me." The pinkette turned and head back towards where the group had begun to collect what they could save from the crash. Lightning dug out a small bag she'd packed that had remained unscathed. Unzipping it, she sifted through the contents before pulling out what looked like another uniform, "CRYSIS uniform from about 3 years ago. Back then, they were trying to create a way to be rid of holsters for their weapons—said they got in the way." She tossed the uniform at Eve who barely managed to catch it with her hands being full, "There's a device integrated into the back that basically creates a magnet that attracts the weapon it's linked with. Dajh can probably set it so it links to the Assault-Lance."
"This is... yours." Eve said quietly, noticing the red shoulder sleeve and a small patch on the front that read 'L. Farron'. Lightning zipped up her pack and stood up, reaching over and ripping the name clean off.
"Not anymore." Lightning motioned back to where they'd just been, "Go. Change. It'll probably easier for Dajh to tinker with it if you have it on." Eve still rather bewildered at the Commander's solution to the mere lack of a weapon holster, hesitated before turning to follow the instruction.
Lightning looked down at the tag as the Lance Corporal walked away. She'd never liked that particular uniform, she'd gotten too comfortable with the holster, she'd found it impossible to get used to not having it behind her. The gentle tap of the holster against the back of her thighs as she ran had grown to become a comfort to her, the knowledge that she was still armed and still dangerous—though it was widely known and frequently mentioned by friend and foe alike that she didn't actually need the weapon for her to seem so. Regardless or her personal problem with it, she had donned the old uniform but did so for no other reason than to be recognized as a member of CRYSIS.
When the uniforms changed again, the weapon-lock technology was kept but still, Lightning chose not to use it. Her eye darted over to Hope for a moment, seeing the small pistol on his hip, held there with what looked like nothing at first glance. In actuality, the weapon-lock was integrated into the belt of his uniform, keeping the pistol in place. If she had the time and resources, she would have worked with Eve and the Assault-Lance using a holster but for now, CRYSIS technology at its finest would have to suffice.
Observing the pinkette, Fang sat atop a large pile of rubble, a few feet from Vanille and Alva, wiping down her lance. She was still ticked at how the soldier had once again picked a total stranger over her. It only stung more that the stranger seemed to have her face. Who the hell was this kid anyway? Fang frowned as the Lance Corporal, who'd disappeared a few minutes ago, returned wearing something new. So whatever Lightning had given her had been a new set of clothes? Why?
Eve was now wearing a pair of black shorts and shirt—the belt she wore on top of them hung down off her hip slightly. She had on a sleeveless white jacket, the tail of which fell down to her thigh on one side and front, left her stomach uncovered. Her left shoulder was covered by a red shoulder wrap of leather and cloth with the CRYSIS emblem patched into it. Around her right forearm she'd attached a light gauntlet that Fang could only assume was linked to her weapon.
As Lightning reached over and adjusted the left arm strap, Fang felt the spark of annoyance in her chest burst into a full flame of fury. For a moment, the warrior entertained the wish that she had retained her l'Cie powers. But as she understood it, no fal'Cie meant no l'Cie. This should have been a good thing but what she would have given to summon an old friend to give the Lance Corporal a taste of his Gestalt Mode... She clenched the old rag in her hand, the upkeep of her lance forgotten now. As Lightning called the others over to discuss their next step, the Oerban tossed the piece of cloth away angrily before making her own way towards the group.
If anyone were watching as the piece of fabric flew into the darkness—away from the dim light of the crash—they would have seen a small sphere of wind flicker in and around it, carrying it farther than it should have traveled. They would have seen the Aero spell toy with the tattered cloth before violently tearing it to pieces.
A/N:
No bears were actually harmed in the making of this chapter.
Jeebus, now even my chapters have parts... =\
I read somewhere that the fur Vanille wear around her waist, behind her skirt, was from a bear she hunted by herself.
For some reason I didn't quite see her doing it entirely by herself but I could imagine she had her awesome-moments.
...kinda like Dajh ...sorta.
I totally botched the description of Eve's new uniform. For a visual reference, you may go to my homepage and view it either on the profile page or find it in the FFafterXIII gallery (if you haven't already).
Oh I know some of you secretly stalk me on dA as well *evil grin*
My migraine is gone =3 Happy days!
Also, there's a new poll on my profile page regarding more FLight. And more FLight is always good.
So... yeah.