"You would think there'd be more security around this place," Lightning breathed, peering warily around a corner.

Standing a few feet in front of her, Fang leaned against a solid black door with her ear and palms pressed against its surface. "I'm sure this one's the right door," she said confidently after a moment, taking a step away from it.

"You said that two doors ago," Lightning hissed, not even trying to tone down the evident annoyance in her voice. Just as she suspected, she had regretted her decision almost immediately after agreeing to accompany Fang on this mission to find some 'secret' Gran Pulsian room. There were actually very few things at the moment that seemed more attractive than ratting the other girl out to Mr. Palmer right about now. If nothing else, it would be decent payback for getting her into enough trouble to get stuck on this Etro-forsaken field trip in the first place. "And what's with all the knocking? What'll you do if someone answers? Offer to sell them cookies?"

Before Fang could respond, the door indeed swung open. "Fang!" There was a flash of orange and before Lightning could actually register what had happened, she noticed the redheaded girl from the lobby clinging to her partner.

"Van," Fang said warmly, rubbing the girl's back as she returned the hug. "No problems, eh?"

"Nope," the redhead answered brightly. She then turned to Lightning and gave her a pleasant smile. "You brought people, too?"

"Yeah, thought it'd be fun," Fang said congenially, looking over to Lightning for a quick moment. "And don't let the long, soul-piercing looks of disdain fool ya. That's her happy face."

Lightning's expression remained unamused. "Can we get inside before we get caught, please?"

"Well, look who's excited now," Fang teased, opening her arm forward to signal Lightning to enter first. Lightning marched past without paying her or Vanille much mind.

When first entering, the room simply came off as a huge, cluttered, dark space. However, after only taking her first couple of steps further, Lightning could tell that it was actually much more. There was a special form of lighting that was set up on the walls and ceiling that emitted a dim, golden glow over the areas of the room where it sensed warms bodies. With this type of lighting, it was hard to see anything from outside, which may have been the reason they were used in the first place, but now that Lightning had taken her first few steps in the room, she was able to take in her new setting.

The first thing that Lightning noticed was that there was a stark contrast between the style of this room and the rest of the Vestige. The walls looked like they were made of big blocks of metamorphic stone, each block's color and pattern swirling in a different way from the rest but still coming together in harmony with each other. The ceiling was raised and had a domed, upward arch that was painted to look like a clouded night sky. When looking around, the teen had to pause to catch her breath. It all reminded her of pictures she had seen of old temples built for Etro.

The room's floor was packed with foreign and exotic looking sculptures, artifacts, and other structures. In the middle of the room, not more than a few meters away from her, stood the frames of a familiar odd couple. Hope and Snow.

Hope turned around and was the first to see Lightning. "Light!" His face absolutely lit up. "Come check some of this stuff out! It's amazing."

Lightning's line of vision instantly flew to Snow. "You brought a kid with you when breaking and entering?" she accused.

"Hey!" Snow's hands flew up in the air defensively. "He didn't want to leave Vanille and neither did I. How would it look if I didn't aid and abet one of Serah's best friends?"

Lightning glowered.

"It was joke. Sheesh…" Snow rested a reassuring hand on Hope's shoulder.

"So you must be Lightning." The chipper redhead, Vanille, appeared next to Lightning out of nowhere. Lightning eyed her skeptically. She was a bit shorter than herself, with pale green eyes that damn near sparkled with mirth. She wore a light orange halter-top and short blue skirt with furs pinned to it. Most importantly, she stood unnervingly close to Lightning. In response, the pinkette took a small sidestep away. "Well, hello! I'm Vanille! I could tell right off the bat that you were Serah's sister. Y'all look just alike! So pink hair must be a dominant trait in-"

"Whoa, whoa, Vanille," Fang grabbed the girl by the shoulders and gently tugged her to her side. "Don't pounce on the girl, yeah? Sorry 'bout that, Lighters. She gets that way sometimes when she meets new people. Easily excited." Fang gave her a gentle squeeze that Vanille hugged into before being released.

"Your best friend, right?" Lightning asked. Her eyes followed Vanille curiously as she walked, or more like bounced, towards Snow and Hope.

"In this world and the one below," Fang confirmed. Her eyes held a sense of pride as she also watched Vanille bound forward to the two boys. "But enough introductions. I know you. You know them. They know her. We're associated! Let's check out the goods."

"Whoop! Whoop!" Snow cheered, raising a fist in the air.

Lightning rolled her eyes. "Why is everyone so excited to be part of a felony?" Everyone ignored the pinkette, but Lightning knew there was something in the air that even she couldn't deny. The excitement in the room was contagious and with each step that she took further into it, it felt as if a bit more of the doubt and regret that she had for coming seeped from her feet and into the floor.

"This way!" Hope bounded off behind a huge boulder with weird carvings engraved in them. "I found some cool looking paintings that you guys might want to take a look at."

The rest of the group moved to follow him, Snow and Vanille leading the way with Fang and Lightning lagging behind.

Lightning couldn't help but try to take in as much of her surroundings as she could. It was all so beautiful, in some dark, alien, and mysterious way. What intrigued her the most were the etchings that marked most of the items. As they slowly weaved through the room, Lightning paused at a metal sphere that rested in an old cart. The sphere was a tainted, dullish silver color. It had lines that ran around it, similar to that of a basketball, with many of the fanciful etchings carved into it. She reached out and tenderly grazed one of the etchings with her fingertips.

"Gran Pulsian inscriptions." Fang stood next to her, looking at the sphere with staid eyes. Lightning couldn't really explain it, but Fang's whole demeanor had changed not too long after they had entered the room. Her easygoing and taunting disposition had immensely sobered up, only returning when someone asked her a question or if she felt that she was being watched. Lightning tried not to give her too much obvious attention, but there was too distinct a difference from the girl's behavior in the more boring part of the Vestige and the behavior of everyone else in the room for the pink-haired girl to not notice. Hope jumped from object to object like a kid in a candy store. Snow pretty much strolled around the room with a lazy smile, labeling everything as 'cool'. Vanille walked around wide-eyed and mesmerized by everything around her. She had pulled out a pen and pad, Etro knows from where, and started making notes and drawing quick sketches of a few of the things they saw. Fang… Fang just moved slowly behind everyone else with a serious look on her face, stopping at some points to critically examine some of the artifacts before silently moving on.

"What do they say?" Lightning asked softly, her eyes now studying the stoic face of the girl beside her.

Fang tilted her head, still focused on the sphere with a faraway look on her face. She reached out and traced the words on the ball, her fingertips lightly brushing against Lightning's in the process. "This one…" Fang said, voice lowered to match Lightning's, "says 'Open'."

Her eyes drifted up to meet Light's. She faintly smiled. "I know. Not as impressive as it looks to the illiterate eye. I'm guessing this thing must've been a keep safe of some sort."

"Yeah…" Lightning simply nodded in agreement. She looked back down to the sphere. "Still, it looks like a beautiful language."

Fang's smile lingered. "It is. Don't know what good it'd do ya, but if you don't tell anyone, maybe I could teach some of it to ya? If you'd like, that is."

"Heh, just sounds like another way for you to get me in trouble." As much as she even disliked her subconscious using the word, she could feel a smiletening forming across her face. Her eyes flitted up again to meet Fang's. Fang's smile widened a bit.

"Fang! Fang!"

And just like that, Fang was gone. Lightning spun around, catching a glimpse of the Pulsian rounding the corner, following the voice of Vanille. She quickly followed suit as well.

"Van?" Fang trotted then stilled to a halt next to the younger girl. She placed her hands on her hips and bent over to get a closer look at the cubed piece of machinery that had gathered Vanille's attention. "Well, whadda'ya got here?"

Lightning slowed and stood between Snow and Hope, who stood across from the two girls. "What's going on?"

"Not sure," Snow replied, stuffing his hands in his trench coat pockets. "But it's got Vanille all excited."

"Fang, don't you remember? Back home? I used to have something just like this!"

"How could I forget the little bugger?" Fang wrinkled her nose at the gizmo that Vanille was now poking and prodding. "It was a major pain in the ass. What was the name of that thing again? Bhakti?"

"Yep! I wonder…" Vanille started making low humming sounds while she continued to poke. "Aha!"

The cube buzzed, not sounding too different from the humming sounds Vanille had just been making. Two panels at the top of the cube rose, allowing two telescope shaped eyes to emerge. The body of the cube also lifted, revealing four wiry, metal legs. A couple of lights that littered across the small machine's body flickered on and off. "Aww… Poor guy must be low on power," Vanille cooed. "Might as well shut 'im back down."

She pushed a button at the top of the cube. That action was immediately followed by a SNAP and a blinding flash of light. "Ahhh!" Fang gasped, rubbing her eyes. She muttered something that most people in the room registered as unintelligible while the small machine made a thrumming sound then a click before totally shutting off.

"Sorry," Vanille apologized, pushing the panels on top of the machine down again.

"It's nothin'," Fang grumbled, standing up. She reached down to help Vanille up as well. "Damned thing's just as bad as Bhakti was."

Snow stepped away from the trio that the three Cocoonians had formed and moseyed down another aisle of piled up artifacts. "So Fang…" He stopped to study a rough sculpture of a naked woman. He reached an open palm forward to cup a breast, but hesitated. He glanced over his shoulder at Lightning. She was standing with her arms folded and eyes deadlocked on him, with a single arched eyebrow, waiting for his next move. He grumbled something under his breath and retracted his hand. "We've seen one of Vanille's old toys. Gonna find any of yours?"

"Oh, Snow, my dear," Fang lightly chuckled. She sauntered over to the oversized boy, making sure to sway her hips more suggestively than usual. "If ya wanted to see one my toys, all you had to do was ask." She winked at him and continued walking forward.

Snow gave a low whistle and grinned, but once again made the mistake of looking back at Lightning, who was giving him a stank eye comparable to none he had ever seen before. "I mean, uh, shit…" he fumbled, quickly turning his attention to the next closest person. "Vanille!"

Vanille perked up, bright eyes settling on Snow expectantly. "Hmm?"

"For someone so handy at picking locks, why did you guys wait for a school function to get in here? This place is awesome!"

"Oh." Vanille gave Snow a sweet smile, genuinely touched by the compliment praising her skills of delinquency. "Well, uh… How do I actually go about saying it?" She looked up toward the ceiling and tapped a finger to her chin.

"We're technically not allowed to enter the Vestige," Fang cut in. Vanille shot Fang a reprimanding look to scold her and Fang's shoulders shot up nearly to her ears. "What? Might as well be truthful with 'um!"

"The Vestige is open to the general public. Why can't you visit?" Hope asked innocently, looking away from some electronic, wheeled contraption.

"Probably broke something."

"Hardy, har, har, Lightyear."

"Fang, play nice. Well actually, Hope, the Vestige is only open to citizens of Cocoon. With us being pureblooded Gran Pulsians, we aren't allowed to register for citizenship. It's not a rule that many people know about… Me, Fang, and the security guards from our first trip here only found out when they scanned our identification chips and the screens turned red."

"I'm sure they're not used to seeing that many Pulsians asking for admission," Lightning mused.

"Gran Pulsians." Fang said it this time with a hint of bitterness in her tone. "And Cocoon's actual history is on display, but 'Coonians' don't actually rush the doors either, now do they?"

Lightning scowled in Fang's direction, her brows ruffled. Fang had a fixed, angry stare set on her as well, her fists clenched and body tense. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Snow jumped between them. "Let's all just take it down a notch. We're all partners in crime here, right? So your ID chips didn't need to get scanned this time?"

"Nope," Vanille continued as if there were no interruption. "Mr. Palmer used a classroom clearance. Because Fang and I are a special case, there was never really a rule put in place before that needed the Vestige to check the individual ID chips in a classroom clearance. And since Mr. Palmer doesn't know the rule, he didn't know to exclude us."

Lightning released a slow breath. Even Vanille's overly bubbly voice had sounded gloomy disclosing that last fact. She stole a long, sideways look towards Fang. I didn't mean that to come out the way it did.

Fang's tense shoulders relaxed a bit and she gave a little shrug, slightly pursing her lips to one side. Meh. I may have overreacted.

Lightning shrugged as well and unexplainably felt a little better on seeing Fang's body once again loosen up and continue on as if nothing had happened.

"Vanille." Hope stood, looking up at a huge stretch of canvas that was spread out across one wall. It was covered in the exotic Pulsian markings with tiny colored illustrations stuck in between the words here and there. "Can you read this?"

Vanille skipped next to the boy, and he visibly blushed. She quickly scanned over the canvas, a pensive look on her face, before smiling and nodding. "It has some complicated words in there, but I get the gist of it."

Vanille cleared her throat dramatically before starting. "Back in the days of the War of Transgression, it says that the Gran Pulse Fal'Cie would recruit humans to be their special warriors in the fight against the Cocoon Fal'Cie and their subjects. These esteemed warriors were called l'cie. The Fal'Cie would gift these warriors with special powers in order for them to complete their focus."

"A focus is like a mission that they'd have to do for a Fal'Cie. Basically the whole reason they'd become l'cie," Fang interrupted. "It's not really written in there, but we know it well enough. It's like a regular bedtime story back at the reservation."

"Well anyway, yes. The Fal'Cie would gift these warriors with special powers in order for them to complete their focus, which would be given to them in a vision at the exact time that the l'cie was bestowed these powers. Once a l'cie was given a focus, he could not escape it. As time progressed without the focus being fulfilled, the l'cie would start to get more frequent and vivid images of the focus that must be completed. This would go on until the l'cie lost his mind and became a walking monster among men. Once a focus is fulfilled, the Fal'Cie would then send the l'cie into a deep crystal slumber until he is needed again."

The teenagers stood silently, letting the story sink in. Snow rested his forearm on Fang's shoulder to lean on the girl. "So," he whispered, "These are the types of bedtime stories they tell you guys?"

"Heh. If ya think that's twisted, you should hear the one about Ragnarok."

"Guys…" Lightning took a step forward, looking past the group to point to the back wall. "What's that?"

Everyone turned around to face the pointed direction. "Whoa," Snow mouthed. The sentiment was shared amongst all the others in the group. Their feet led them to walk closer to the subject; all the other artifacts in the room cleared away the closer they got to it.

Lightning's stomach clenched. Her gut was telling her something wasn't right, but she cautiously continued to walk forward anyway. She looked around at her partners in crime, wondering if they all had the same feeling. As if to show that they did, all of their faces were scrunched in suspicion, all of their steps slow and dubious.

The big structure ahead of them was nothing special. It didn't really look like anything special. It had a fat, dome-shaped base with what looked to be metallic looking wires, tubes, and beams sprouting from it. The floor surrounding the thing looked different too. It was covered in circular patterns that visibly housed gears and cogs. "What'dya reckon this is?" Fang looked over to Vanille.

"Hmmm." Vanille rubbed her chin, halting her steps quite a few feet away from the base. "I… I don't know." With that she quickly pulled out her pad and started sketching in it.

Lightning continued to eye the structure unsurely. She innately took a step back. Hope, who was standing a few steps behind her, followed suit. "W-what time is it? Maybe we should head back before we get caught."

Fang looked up from Vanille's sketching to look back on the object. She continued to stare at it for a long moment. She slowly shook her head. Her eyes were glued to the structure. She took another step towards it. "Uh, Fang," Snow reached for her wrist, "Maybe we should give it some space."

"Uh, uh," Fang yanked her wrist away, never breaking eye contact with the thing. She took another step forward.

"Fang…" Vanille paused her sketching to look up at her best friend with a worried expression. "Fang?"

By now Fang had reached the base. Everyone else held their breath as she reached out a tentative hand and slowly placed her fingertips against the side of the dome before flattening her palm against it. She released a loud, audible breath. One that must've been so deep that even everyone who stood behind her could see her body hike up then relax from the action. She looked over her shoulder at her comrades, a look of heavy relief and slight confusion on her face. "Well… don't know what that was about. But yea, the little guy is right. We stay her any longer, and they might notice we've gone missing."

Vanille nodded her head shakily. Lighting felt her shoulders loosen and gave a single nod of agreement as well. Fang fully turned and let her hand slide off the structure in order to make her way back to the group. The others turned back as well to head for the door.

TICK! TICK! TICK! TICK! TICK! TICK! TICK!

"Huh?" Fang paused to listen to the silent clicking sounds that surrounded her.

Lightning looked over her shoulder curiously as well.

WHOOSH!

A sudden burst of light flashed up from the floor, the gears below whirling crazily. "What the…" Lightning stared down at the floor incredulously. She was too dazed in the moment to even contemplate what her next move should be or how she should probably be escaping.

"AHH!" Vanille gasped.

Lightning's head shot up. A crack of light split through the center of the domed base and slowly spread open, nearly blinding the teens. She squinted and placed her to arms in front of her face in an 'X' shape in order to block out the light. Her clothes swept backwards against her body as an unexpected gust of wind blew against her, threatening her balance. "What did you do?!" she shouted as loud as she could, barely being able to hear her own voice over the wind gushing through her ears.

"I don't know!" She could just about make out Fang's exclaimed reply.

"Turn it off!" Snow yelled from somewhere behind Lightning.

"If ya think I knew how, d'ya think I'd be over here playin- HOOOO-LEEEEE SHIT!"

Two huge spinning appendages, somewhat resembling the top of a giant, extremely pissed off screwdriver, surfaced from inside the light of the blinding dome. From behind the two scary appendages, metallic looking legs reached out, pulling a gigantic, weird mechanical-looking body behind it. "F-F-Fal… FUCK! FUCK! RUN!"

Lightning stared wide-eyed at the being that had emerged from the stationary structure. She hadn't even noticed that she had stopped breathing until she felt a strong arm wrap around her waist and drag her away in the opposite direction. She let out a choked breath and frantically looked around as she continued to be pushed forward. Snow had hoisted Hope under his arm and was sprinting for the door. Beside her, Fang was dragging her around the waist with one arm and pulling Vanille along by the wrist with her other hand.

Lightning spun around to also make a break for it when she felt the arm that had been so secure around her waist not a second before being savagely ripped backwards. She whipped her head around to see Fang, suspended in the air and being pulled back to the mechanical monster by a whip of light. "FANG!" She couldn't hear herself shout the name, but she knew she had done it.

Fang was thrashing, hopelessly trying to escape the blinding light lasso. Her wild eyes landed on Lightning. She was vehemently shouting at her. Lightning couldn't hear a word of it, but knew exactly what she was saying.

Get Vanille.

Lightning dashed back towards the monster. The redhead had run back, trying to save her friend. That was all for naught now. In a second, Lightning had latched onto the girls elbow and was yanking her back in the opposite direction. She could feel the girl's arm tensing and straining, trying to pull in the opposite direction. She knew she was calling her best friend's name. She was fighting hard to go back, but Lightning's grip wouldn't let up. It was then that she felt the rest of Vanille's arm violently slip through her grasp, right before she felt a tight vice-like grip tighten around her own waist. The ground leapt from under her, and her stomach jumped as she twirled through the air. She caught glimpses of orange, khaki, and silver surrounded by lines of white flailing along in the air with her.

She reached down to grasp the binding light around her, but the moment her skin made contact she felt an electric jolt run through her.

Everything went black.

Quick images flickered and dissipated in front of her eyes. No. Behind her eyes. No. In her head.

Feral eyes staring at her. A loud piercing scream. She couldn't cover her ears. Gun fire. A bolt of electricity blasting through concrete. Deafening explosion. Icicles flying. No, a blizzard. Gunshots. More loud explosions. A deafening roar. A beast with a wild, fiery mane and a pincer-like tail.

Darkness.