Chapter 2: Fate of a L'cie

Lightning led us to an apartment complex outside of Eden and we went up to the third floor. When we walked in the room was trashed, as if someone had already been here. "We'll be safe here for a while, they're not going to look here." Lightning said. She didn't have to tell me that for me to figure it out, the damage done to the apartment was clue enough that PSICOM had already been here looking for her.

As Lightning straightened up what she could of the place, I just walked around getting to know the area. I soon came to a desk with a picture of Lightning and a girl that looked like her only younger. The girl had tint pink hair that was pulled to the left side and curled, and she left some of her hair loosely hanging around her neck and had blue eyes just like Lightning. She wore a white short sleeve dress shirt with a pink transparent sweeper over it. On the bottom she wore a red pleated skirt lined with black lace, black thigh high stalkings and ivory ankle boots. "Who's this?" I asked pointing to the picture.

Lighting surprisingly walked over and looked at it to answer my question. "That's my younger sister Serah. She was a L'cie too until she turned to crystal."

I gasped a little. "She turned to crystal?"

She nodded, "That's what happens to a L'cie, if you complete your focus you turn to crystal, if you fail you turn into a Cie'th, a monster."

I looked down and wrapped my hand over my marked wrist, "That's terrible..."

"What's terrible is what they make us do, there is no happiness for a L'cie." Lightning said sternly.

"How...how did you become a L'cie?" I asked, I really was curious.

She was quiet for a minute before answering. "I went to go save my sister but by the time I got there it was too late, her focus was complete and she turned to crystal right before my eyes. After that I got angry and started to attack the Fal'cie in charge of that sanctum and got branded. What's your story?"

"Umm...well..." I started wondering how to start my story. "I moved here a few days ago and I was completely ignorant to everything about this place and whats going on, I suppose that's how I fell into the crowd that started this mess." I said laughing nervously. "Anyway, I started hanging out with this group of people who seemed friendly enough, they invited me into their group almost instantly. It was fun hanging out with them and getting to know them, it made me feel like I belonged here. But that's not part of the story of how I became this way, that all happened this morning."

"And what exactly happen this morning." Lighting asked as she took a seat on one of the bar stools.

I fidgeted a bit before giving her my story about how my life changed instantly. "This morning started out like any other, I went to go hang out with my 'friends'. They wanted to go check out one of the Fal'cie sanctums, which seemed completely harmless at the time because I had no idea what any of this was." I admitted. "But when we got there nobody went in, as if they were afraid of something. The leader of the group dared me to go inside, which I willingly did. I started walking around the area for a while, it looked very interesting and unique, that is until I reached the Fal'cie or whatever it's called. I was scared of it, it didn't feel right being there, there was so much power coming from it. When I got close enough a greenish-blue light shot out of it and was coming straight at me, but by the time I was able to run it already caught hold of me. I was marked then and had an odd dream as I fell."

She just looked at me for a minute, her eyes probing. "What did you 'dream' about?"

I twitched uneasily as I heard the quotes around dream, "Well...I can't remember it well but it had to do with some form of monster." I said looking up as I folded my arms and started walking slowly. "There was a lot of death and destruction and it was just too chaotic to make out anything, it didn't make sense or anything. It had no meaning, just a random dream."

Lightning stood up and walked over to me then, grabbing my wrist with the mark hard and slapping me across the face with enough force that I would have fallen to the ground if she wasn't holding me. "You stupid kid!" she yelled. She was beyond angry now, she was furious. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" I just shook my head, slighting dazed. "You're going to become Ragnarok and destroy Cocoon! That's your focus, it comes in a dream form, not given to you easily." she took a deep breath to calm herself before letting me go.

Once I was free I staggered back a little, slightly afraid. This woman had some anger issues. "So I'm going to become a monster and kill everybody?"

She looked at me and shook her head, "Not if I can help it, I'm going to find a way to get rid of your focus, or at least change it. Can you move quickly and fight in those clothes?"

"Okay first off, how does one change their focus? Second of all yes I can fight in this." I said as I motioned to my short pink dress with zippers in random areas.

"Simple, we go against our focus. We have to protect Orphan and destroy Cocoon so I figure we attack Orphan and protect Cocoon." She said as she started heading for the door.

I just shrugged, "Sounds good to me." I called out following her. I had no idea what any of this meant but Lightning did so I just have to trust her.