Hey everyone! Sorry, I haven't updated in like...A MONTH. For some reason, this chapter was really tough to get through =\ but THANK YOU for the continued support! Your favorites and follows and reads mean a ton :) I promise I will try to update once a week, at LEAST once every two weeks, like I used to. For now, enjoy! :) and yes, I did take the chapter title from XIII-2...because it is startlingly accurate ;p
Thank you to Meyneth24 :) this chapter is dedicated to you.
Summary: "No matter what the future holds…" he trailed off, voice softening as he said his last words. "We will see our way through it."
Disclaimer: I don't own the Final Fantasy XIII series.
Bhunivelze – 500AF (Two Hundred and Ten Days after the Chaos)
Stacks Orregan walked briskly down the hall of the Academy headquarters, intent on getting to his destination. He stopped in front of one specific door, sliding his keycard to gain access to a rather large research lab with no one inside. He quickly made his way to one of the side rooms, opening the door to see two crystalline figures in the middle of the room. The person he was looking for was asleep in the chair next to the crystal, his silver head supported by the back of the chair. His hair was mussed, and there were dark circles under his eyes, tie askew. Stacks frowned. If he was falling asleep in the middle of the day, he probably didn't get any sleep the past two nights, knowing his sleeping habits.
"Hope. Hope," he called, gently shaking his friend awake. The silveret stirred, yawning.
"What is it?" he asked, rubbing his aquamarine eyes. Stacks ran a hand through his own purple hair.
"I'm sorry to have to wake you up," he said apologetically. "But something weird just came in, and I figured you would want to take a look ASAP."
Suddenly alert, Hope sprang up from his chair, all the while fixing his appearance. With one last look at the crystal, he walked out of the room, smiling to himself when heard Stacks stop and say, "Lady Fang. Lady Vanille," before following him.
"What's the problem?" Hope asked as soon as he walked into the conference room, getting a word in before anyone else could speak. Director Nazca, the members of the board, and several other scientists were there, all with troubled looks on their faces.
"Director Estheim," Nazca greeted him, gesturing to a chair. He took a seat before she continued to speak. "Several hospitals in the area have sent out reports of miscarriages- a startling amount of them. When asked to provide other records, we have found that there haven't been any births the past seven months."
"Seven months. That corresponds to the influx of Chaos," Stacks, standing behind Hope, said under his breath. The silveret's eyebrows furrowed as he followed along with the conversation, relieved when the discussion came to an end. Until the board had more information, they would not decide on a course of action- which meant that it was time for Hope and the others to get to work.
"Have all the reports from the hospitals sent to me, and make sure they include all miscarriages, all pregnancies, all births, and all deaths," Hope instructed his assistant. "And get records from every hospital in Bhunivelze, and whoever is still left in any hospital or makeshift hospital on Gran Pulse after the settlement last month."
"Yes sir," she said, nodded, and walked off, quickly typing away at her handheld device and tapping her comm. Stacks kept pace with his mentor, awaiting his instructions. "Stacks, I need you to head back to the lab and look further into the Chaos. If your theory is that the Chaos caused time to stop, we may need to look into how that affects human biology. I need to get a message to Snow and Noel."
"Hope!" Snow said cheerfully into the phone. "We just finished looking at the city Pandaemonium's been building. It says it's halfway done-"
The scientist didn't even try to stop his friend; he just slumped his back against the chair he was sitting in, and put a hand over his face to wait it out.
"-We're about to head into another Chaos area today to kill off more monsters, and-"
Time was running short. Hope decided to cut his losses and attempt to talk over him.
"Snow, something's happened."
That got the blond's attention. "What's happened? We can head back right-"
A loud roar was heard over the phone, causing Hope's eyes to snap open. "Snow, what's-"
"Call you later!"
The line went dead.
Blood. There was blood everywhere, the man's dying groans reverberating through the airship as Sazh sped toward Bhunivelze. Noel was doing everything he could to stop the bleeding and save his life, but no matter what he tried, the soldier was losing blood, and fast.
"Hello?!" Snow barked into the phone. "This is Snow Villiers, we've got a situation here! We've got a man down, he was injured on a Chaos recon trip on Nova Chrysalia. Your hospital is the closest one, prep for immediate action!"
Every minute ticked by, more blood soaking the already-dripping cloths, shirts, jackets, anything and everything Noel had tried to staunch the bleeding with. There was nothing more he could do than hold the article of clothing against the deep gash on the man's side, hoping that it would at least help a little. His hands were slippery with the dark red liquid, still warm from his body.
"Snow," the brunet grunted through gritted teeth. "He's not looking good." He tried to speak quietly, choosing words that wouldn't alarm the soldier underneath his hands even if the man was too far gone in his pain and spasms to hear him or pay attention to what he was saying.
It was cutting it close by the time Sazh hastily landed the airship right outside of the hospital doors, nurses and doctors immediately lifting the man onto the floating stretcher and rushing him inside. As Snow made the call to Hope, Noel went with them to let them know what, exactly, happened to him before he could wash off the blood that had caked onto his hands, his arms, and even his face. The blood that got onto his clothes were going to have to wait.
"Chaos monster," he explained quickly as the group rushed down the hall to one of the operating rooms. "It got him on the side. Big dragon. Big claws."
That was as far as he got before they reached the operating room, another nurse ushering him to the showers. When he emerged several minutes later, the expression on Snow's face made his breath catch in his throat.
"We need to get back to Bhunivelze," the blond said grimly.
The duo found Hope in the middle of research inside the main lab with the other scientists, everyone pouring over stacks of paper and entering the information into the systems. Their silver-haired friend looked up at them with a tired expression as he ran a hand over his face.
"Stacks had a theory," he started speaking before Snow or Noel could ask any questions. "That the Chaos caused time to stop. Then reports from hospitals came in- there's been a huge number of miscarriages in the past seven months, which matches up with when the influx of Chaos started. No one's been born. And no one's died from old age either, according to the records."
Noel's phone rang, and the brunet stepped aside to answer it while Snow and Hope continued the discussion.
"Does anyone else know?" Snow asked quietly.
"Not yet," Hope said. "No one outside of this room knows anything yet, except Director Nazca. I told her the preliminary hypothesis about time stopping. I think…the best thing to do is to talk to her about this first before talking to the board. You know them," he continued with a grimace. "They won't take it well."
"But then afterward, they'll make you make a public speech about it," the blond murmured. "Those bastards won't want to take responsibility for any of this stuff."
Noel made his way back to the two then, a grim look on his face. "The man from earlier- he's dead. They couldn't do anything for him."
Hope's aquamarine eyes swung over to Snow, demanding an explanation. The latter sighed. "We were out on patrol just now, looking over some other Chaos spots. One of our guys got caught in a skirmish with a dragon, and he was mauled. We got him to a hospital, but…well, he didn't make it."
The scientist's eyebrows furrowed. "So people can die even if time froze," he said. Noel and Snow both looked disbelievingly at him. "I'm sorry, I don't feel good that someone's dead, but his passing is helped us garner more information. And the more information we have at this point, the better. We're only seven months into this Chaos period; who knows what might happen next?"
Neither could argue with that point. Letting out a breath, Hope straightened, brushing imaginary lint off his jacket before turning to the purple-haired youth who appeared next to him. "Stacks, would you please gather the information we have into a report and have that given to me by the end of the day? I need to hold a meeting with the Director."
Director Nazca's face had been grave when Hope brought the news to her, and she had called a board meeting immediately. Hope was spot-on when he said they wouldn't take it well- there were a lot of stunned silences, a lot of yelling afterwards, and then, as Snow had said earlier, they wanted Hope to make the official announcement. Even Director Nazca didn't refute it; Hope had quite the reputation and influence being the one who created Bhunivelze, reared now as the leader of humanity (much to the disgruntlement of the board members), and so she thought the news would be more well-received coming from him.
It was writing the speech that took a while. There was simply no good way to tell someone that time was frozen, no one could be born, no one could age, and no one could die from aging. The day of the speech came, a cloudy day with dark clouds hanging over as Hope prepared to walk onto the platform in front of an enormous crowd and what looked like hundreds of cameras pointed at him, ready to livestream him into all available networks on Bhunivelze and any that may have been established on Nova Chrysalia.
The young scientist blew out a nervous breath backstage, and Snow clasped a large hand on his shoulder. "You got this," the bigger man said comfortingly. "You've already given us so much hope the past five hundred years. You can perform more miracles than you think, Hope."
Hope looked down at the ground, shuffling his feet before clearing his throat, steeling his gaze at the drawn curtains and the foot of the stairs that peeked through. He straightened, thinking of Lightning in the moments that she had stood up to their adversaries all those centuries ago, the bold way she made her declarations, thinking of Fang and her quiet strength, of Vanille and her determination. With only a nod, he pushed back the curtains and walked up the steps to the podium, waiting for the applause to die down.
"Everyone," he began, his voice wavering only slightly. "Everyone, these are hard times. Since the influx of Chaos and the terraforming of our world, it has been one trial after another, trying to adjust to life on Bhunivelze and the changes that have been made to Nova Chrysalia. Everyone here has a home, has loved ones, has precious memories and things that they wish to keep safe."
There were slight ripples of nods, murmurs of affirmation as he said these words. Hope knew this was the easy part; it was what had to come next, the heavy truth with the weight of an anvil that would thrust humanity face to face with the unknown, with their deepest fears laid in front of the darkness, that would test humanity's resolve.
"In these past seven months, there have been countless, tireless studies done to look at the effects of the Chaos, to determine the best route for us, the human race, to take as we travel through these uncertain times. What we've found-" he stopped here for only a second to gather his courage, to gather his thoughts. "What we've found is that the Chaos affects time and space. It has not only terraformed our world, but has caused the stopping of time as well."
It was instantaneous; everyone started speaking all at once, panicking and gasping, and Hope needed to do something.
"We're not sure whether that's a lasting effect yet, or if the Chaos will simply vanish," he said quickly. "But if the past five hundred, the past one thousand years have proved anything, it is that we are resilient. We can overcome any odds, if we stand together. And it is together that we can rebuild our world."
A roar of cheers erupted from the crowd, giving Hope the courage to go on. "We can unite both Bhunivelze and Nova Chrysalia," he continued. "We can support each other, wherever we decide to settle to continue living our lives. We can unite the whole of Nova Chrysalia, using a monorail, to bring together people wherever you may be."
"No matter what the future holds…" he trailed off, voice softening as he said his last words. "We will see our way through it."