Fang laid stretched out across a few rows of bleachers, her elbows reaching back behind her to prop her upper body up and her legs stretching down to cross at the ankles on one of the bleachers further down. Two rows down and to her right, Snow straddled one bleacher while Hope and Lightning sat upright, only one row apart from each other, a few feet across from him.
"…and that is the story for all those who didn't remember." Vanille came to a stop on one of the rows in the middle of the odd circle of bodies that the other four had created. She had been walking and weaving between them, repeating the story of the fal'Cie and l'Cie that she had read aloud in the Vestige.
Fang watched her with a light smirk. "Was everyone taking notes?" Her eyes rolling over everyone else's faces.
"So we all have super powers?" Snow asked. He lifted his hands to his face and slowly turned them, watching them in awe.
"If ya wanna look at it that way, then yeah. You haven't used any yet?" Fang quirked a slender eyebrow. Of the entire group, she would've pegged Snow as the one to accidentally going overboard with everything.
"Well, kinda. I knew something was up when I was playing a pick-up game at the rec center the other day. Went in to slam dunk and broke the backboard."
"Ahh, so you got a bit of the strength boost, too, eh? Figures. You look the type," Fang said.
"Oh." Snow grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. "I was more surprised because I've never jumped that high before."
A couple of the teens snickered softly at the confession. Lightning ignored them and focused back on Vanille. Despite how bright and bubbly she talked and how she pretty much skipped around their section of the bleachers as she retold the story, she currently seemed more serious about the matter than Fang. "So Fang said that you two were looking into a way to fix all of this. Did you come up with something?"
"I guess you can say that," Vanille said. She walked over to her bag, which had been sitting next to Fang, and pulled out a small book. "Before we were branded, I managed to get a pretty good sketch of the fal'Cie. At least in its dormant state."
Lightning carefully studied the small book from where she was sitting. "Is that the same journal you had with you on the field trip? PSICOM didn't take it away when you were brought in?" In her mind, Lightning could vividly recall how scantily clad Vanille had been when they visited the Vestige. At the time, she could barely believe that the girl could've carried it around unnoticed, but for it to have been hidden so well that even PSICOM couldn't find and confiscate it? Her eyes narrowed in Vanille's direction. "Where were you holding that thi—"
"Lightmare!" Fang cut in. "Important issues! Stay focused! As you were saying, Van?"
Vanille's gaze quickly flitted from Fang to Lightning before she just shrugged them both off and happily continued as if nothing had happened. "So yeah. I was able to get a sketch of the fal'Cie in its dormant state." She opened the journal to the page of the sketch and handed it to Snow to look at before passing around.
"Fang then gave the sketch to Maqui, who did a search of it on the net and in some different library and information databases."
Hope reached up to pass the journal to Lightning. The girl hesitated for a moment, not really knowing where the book had been, before reluctantly biting the bullet and taking the journal in her hands to study the picture. She hadn't expected it, but Vanille was actually quite the artist. The sketch was almost identical to what they had seen in the back room of the Vestige. Lightning could feel a cold chill run up her spine just looking at it.
"And he was able to find a few matches on it that connected us to our grand perpetrator, the fal'Cie Anima!" Vanille extended her arm with a finger pointed outward as if she were leading a charge into battle as she finished her last exclamation.
"Anima…" Lightning softly repeated, giving the picture in the journal one last look before passing it up to Fang.
"Yea. From the research, turns out he comes from me and Van's neck of the woods." Fang moved her rear around in order to settle further in her laid out position. "He used to set up shop in our village, Oerba, just picking out folk and turning them into l'Cie like it was a people buffet. Some of the l'Cie got tired of it, and decided they'd face whatever fate lay ahead of 'em head on as long as their loved ones were safe. They went and turned on the fal'Cie. Made their own l'Cie army and drove him out the village. Happened not too long before the big Transgression Truce, too."
"Face whatever fate lay ahead of them?" Hope spoke for the first time since he had taken a seat in the bleachers with them. "What fate? The walking monsters among men? Or the deep crystal slumber?"
"Well… We don't know actually know," Vanille confessed. "We weren't able to find much documentation on the actual fate of the l'Cie, so we don't know how truthful any of it is."
"Everything else has seemed true enough so far," Lightning said in a gruff voice. "It could all just be a scare tactic to strong arm people into doing the fal'Cie's will, but then again it could just be another ridiculous truth. Were you able to find anything else on Anima?"
"No." Vanille shook her head a bit dejectedly. "But we are still trying to gather as much as we can. We've been asking a few of the elders on the reservation, but they don't seem to want to talk about it much. They say there's no reason to dwell on such a painful part of our history anymore."
"I was able to find out a bit more on branding by giving one of our elders a pedicure," Fang announced.
"You give pedicures?" Snow laughed, leaning forward on the bleacher.
"Well, it's not that much information. She stopped talking to me once she looked down and saw what I was doing to her feet." Fang grinned. "But turns out, the brand kinda acts as a timer. It pretty much lets ya know how long until the fal'Cie gets pissed at ya or something for not finishing your focus. She said that at first your brand starts to get more arrows. Then, it turns red and forms an eye. Once that eye opens… that's when shit gets real. Nobody's brand has started changing yet, huh?"
Snow lifted up the sleeve of his jacket while Hope pulled down at one of his gloves in order to take a look at their brands. Fang pulled down her nylon sleeve to peek at hers before sliding it up again.
"Fang?"
Fang looked to Vanille and nodded. She sat up from her leaning position on the bleachers and reached over to lift up the corner of Vanille's skirt.
"Whoa!"
"Ayee…"
Snow's head quickly shot up towards the sky while Hope's eyes darted downwards to look at his feet, his whole face turning a deep crimson red. Lightning sucked her teeth at the how the two boys reacted, although she didn't approve of the way Fang had checked Vanille's brand either. The evident scowl on her face was proof enough of that. Her hand rose over her breast where she herself had been branded.
"Yer good," Fang announced, lowering Vanille's skirt.
Before lying back down across the bleachers, Fang turned to face Lightning. "What about yours? You check it?"
"I'll check it later," Lightning answered, her voice coming out a bit harsher than she had intended.
One of Fang's eyebrows slightly quirked in reaction to Lightning's tone, but she quickly pushed it aside. "Well, we're all right here now. Better to make sure things aren't progressing too quickly for anyone. Kinda shapes our whole game plan, ya know." Fang turned her body around on the bleacher so that she was straddling it just like Snow was straddling his.
"If no one else's has changed, I'm sure mine hasn't either. If it has, I'll let you know." The words were practically being pushed through gritted teeth now.
"C'mon, neighbor, it'll only take a sec," Snow encouraged.
Lightning sent him one of his own personalized death glares as Fang curiously scratched her head. "Where is your brand, anyway?" she asked.
Lightning stiffened. It was a cue that Fang immediately picked up on and it took her less than a second afterwards to notice where the Cocoonian's hand was placed on her body. Lightning let her hand drop into her lap and chanced a look in Fang's direction, hoping she hadn't noticed.
Of course she had.
A small yet devious, close-lipped smile was slowly widening across Fang's face. No way.
Lightning could feel her brow forming a deep crease as her eyes narrowed dangerously on the Pulsian. Shut up.
"If ya want, you can turn your back to the guys and I can just check it for ya." Fang was using all of her will power trying to keep her tone serious, but she knew she wasn't doing too great a job.
"No," Lightning growled.
"Aww, c'mon. Don't be shy," Fang goaded, scooting closer towards Lightning on her bleacher. "Vanille didn't—"
"I SAID NO!" Lightning exploded, causing Fang to jump backwards a bit.
"Alright, alright. You can just check later." Fang put her hands up defensively, and scooted back away from the girl.
"Ohhh-kayyy," Vanille looked between Fang and Lightning, testing the waters to see if it was safe to continue, "Well, since it's already been over a week and there doesn't seem to be any progression on anyone's brand, it seems as if we've been given a healthy amount of time to figure things out. I vote that our first priority should be trying to determine what our powers are and learning how to control them."
"Objection." Fang raised a finger to the air. "There isn't really a rulebook to this stuff, Van. So our brands didn't progress this week. Big whoop. What if tomorrow they pull a full monty? Figuring out this focus should be our main priority, and we're already at a disadvantage because the biggest personal clue we have on this fal'Cie so far is that he's a bit of a lecher."
"Hey!" Lightning shot.
"Too soon?"
"Fang." Vanille commanded the attention back in her direction. "You said yourself that you almost hurt yourself when you lost control of your power. And both Lightning and Snow were in very public places when they lost control. If we don't get a handle on these abilities, we're bound to either get injured or caught."
"But if we don't finish our focuses, we may be bound to become monsters, Vanille." Fang leaned forward in Vanille's direction. Her voice had grown a low and threatening.
"And we can't finish our focus if we're locked away in a PSICOM prison cell either, Fang." Vanille took a step forward with balled up fists. She looked much more adorable than threatening, but they had to at least give her points for the effort.
"I kinda agree with Vanille," Snow said, raising a hand. "Maybe once we get a handle on things, we can even use them to figure the focus out. Cause right now, I'm just scared that I'll accidentally do something crazy at a bad time."
"See?" Vanille said, thrusting an arm out in Snow's direction.
"Well, we can't totally put our focuses on hold for this! We should at least try and figure out what the damned things are!" Fang threw her arms up in exasperation.
"You said that the focus was given to us in a vision when we were branded, right?" Hope spoke up again from his part of the circle. "I remember mine pretty clearly. Or kind of clearly. It's all jumbled up in my head. I have dreams about it at night."
Lightning's head swung in Hope's direction. He was looking down at his lap and twiddling his fingers nervously. It made sense why those dreams she had been having seemed so familiar. They were the same visions she had had in the Vestige.
"Okay. Would you mind sharing them with us, Hope?" Vanille asked in a sweet voice, taking a few steps closer to the boy.
"Yeah. Sure. Uh… I remember there being loud screaming. And a lot of snow, like there was a blizzard going on. Then—"
"Lightning," Lightning cut in ironically. Hope's eyes jumped up to meet hers, shocked that she knew what was coming next. "It sounds like the same vision I had," she said calmly, answering Hope's unasked question. "Screaming, a blizzard, lightning, gunshots… some gigantic monster with a big pronged tail."
"Whoa, same here," Snow added in.
Vanille rubbed her chin and her eyebrows scrunched together as she looked down in a thinking position. "Well, we were all branded at the same time, so if Anima really wanted to make sure that a certain job got done, it makes sense that he'd choose more than one l'Cie to do it. If nothing else, it'll make it easier for us."
"For what? So we can finish it and turn into crystal?" Hope asked, his voice shaky.
"We don't know what any of it means yet," Vanille replied in a soothing voice. "Once we figure out the focus, then hopefully we can find a way around it."
"When we finally get around to trying to figure it out," Fang mumbled, leaning back against the bleachers again.
Lightning shot her a quick, angry glare for her insensitivity before looking back to Hope and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "She's right. We'll figure this out, but we've got to take it one step at a time."
"Okay…" Hope nodded. His voice still sounded solemn, but who could really blame him.
"Soooo," Snow began, trying to cut through the gloomy cloud that had descended on the group, "We were talking about giving our powers a test run. Where can we do that without being seen?"
"Fang and I have been practicing on little things around the reservation. We would invite y'all to visit, but if too many Cocoonians showed up, it'd probably raise a bunch of… suspicion."
"I don't know of many secret hideouts or anything," Hope admitted. "And my dad has security cameras hidden all around our estate, so I can't even sneak you guys into the backyard."
"My aunt and uncle are always home trying to do the better living thing where they plant gardens and make specialized dinners and cupcakes," Snow said. Fang looked towards him and scrunched her eyebrows. He shrugged in return. "Old, bored, and rich. But Lightning, you have a pretty big yard. And you can't really see into it with that industrial gate you guys built a few years ago. Why don't we go to your place?"
Lightning turned to Snow and didn't verbally respond. She just eyed him curiously, as if expecting him to answer his own question.
"Oh, c'mon! Serah will be at the cheerleading retreat and your dad doesn't even come home until late. Your place is perfect!"
Lightning's expression flattened a bit. She didn't like the fact that Snow knew so much of her family's schedule. "We really can't find another place to do this?"
"The idea is to hit the ground running," Fang answered. "We can use your place tomorrow, and by the day after, we should have found a replacement."
Lightning thought about it for a moment before relenting. If everything they had talked about was true, then time really was of the essence and every day counted. "Okay."
She told Fang her address and eyed the Pulsian warily as the girl grinned at her the entire time. "You're not going to write this down?" she asked.
"No need," Fang said, tapping her head. "It's all up here. But if ya want, you could write down your phone number instead. I could call ya tonight and we could talk… logistics." Fang quickly lifted her eyebrows up and down in two quick, suggestive motions.
Lightning gave Fang a listless look before turning to Vanille. "I'll see you tomorrow, Vanille."
"Bye, Lightning!" Vanille responded with a jolly smile and a wave.
Fang continued to grin as the girl slung her book bag over her shoulder and followed Snow and Hope into the aisle. Vanille settled down to lie across the bleachers next to Fang. Fang's grin slowly faded as the other three l'Cie moved further and further away. Once they had disappeared she let out a deep breath and looked up towards the sky, leaning her head back so that it was totally lying on the seat behind her. "So can we agree that the focus thing might be a bit of a big deal, now?" she asked after a silent moment, turning her head to face Vanille.
Vanille looked back at her with an unsure expression. "It does raise a bit of a red flag," she confessed. "I was expecting everyone's focus to be the same. I just don't understand… Why did we get a different one?"