Hello again! I'm back :3

Silly me, I started writing like four stories at once... Just a precaution, I probably won't be updating this one as often. But I do feel better so I'll probably be getting more done overall.

Anyway, this chapter kind of echoes the first part of the game in New Bodhum... But things aren't so straightforward, since though Serah was everybody's friend, Lightning doesn't trust anyone...

Chapter One: Nightmares I've Had

"My hopes go with you, Noel Kreiss. Become an arrow through time…"

Lightning jolted awake and sat up, phantom images still raging behind her eyes. She gasped as she realized what she had dreamt. She'd seen her sister, Serah, wearing a shiny silver suit of armor—and fighting. She'd seen another woman with blue hair and a katana. The woman with blue hair had watched her companion die on the shores of the place called Valhalla, and then laid him to rest in the water. The dead man had lavender hair and a black suit of armor. Lightning had never seen him before, but she had felt drawn to him. She'd never felt a pull like that toward anyone else.

And, of course, she'd seen that other man—the man who had emerged from the very air of the timeless island. The man Serah had spoken to in front of the blue-haired woman, while she summoned monsters and unleashed them at her opponents. The one Serah had told to find Lightning in New Bodhum.

Lightning sat up straight and swung her legs over the side of her bed. She could hear, in the distance, what sounded like shouting. She wondered why she hadn't woken up earlier. Maybe NORA had decided not to wake her. Lightning had, after all, thrown all the contempt at them that she could come up with in their first few weeks together. She'd made it clear she didn't like them or care what they did.

Still, the noise unsettled her. She stood up and began to cross the room to the window on the opposite side. Before she could make it there, she stopped and looked down at herself. She hadn't yet grown used to the fact that she couldn't wear her military uniform everywhere, and her new outfit didn't always please her. She wore a black collared jacket, rolled up at the sleeves, with a low-cut indigo top underneath. She had also added a pair of gray shorts to the ensemble. Lebreau, one of the members of NORA, had given her the clothes when she had arrived. She'd insisted that Lightning wear a matching indigo piece of fabric, which hung down at her left hip. It reminded her of the cape she had used to wear as part of her Guardian Corps uniform. The only part of the outfit she had initially liked, though, was the black combat boots.

Lightning took a deep breath and walked the rest of the way to the window. Pulling aside the curtains, she looked outside. What she saw made her gasp aloud. NORA and the rest of the island's residents swarmed the beach, fighting what looked like massive android insects. They fired with an array of weapons, but mostly machine guns. Their fire took down several of the monsters and sprayed bullets into the sand.

Knowing she had to act, Lightning dashed out of her room and stumbled into the main room of NORA House. The front door stood wide open, a clear pathway to the scene she'd watched from the window. Lightning reached for her gunblade, expecting to feel the hilt hanging just above the back of her knees, but she ended up grasping at only air. She grunted and spun around, throwing open the kitchen cabinets closest to her. When she came up with nothing but food and supplies, she began to tear through every cabinet and storage area she could find, on the lookout for her weapon. She could have sworn she had seen it just days ago.

A particularly loud explosion hit the shores outside, and Lightning halted her search for her weapon. She broke into a run and sped down the stairs at the front of the house. She'd just have to borrow someone else's weapon, she decided, because they needed her. They couldn't fight like this all on their own.

But when she stepped outside, she emerged not onto a battleground, but a wasteland. The air around her shimmered; the people on the shores disappeared; the trees appeared dead and barren of leaves. The landscape seemed to tilt around her, and as much as she tried to keep her composure, she lost her balance a few yards away from the entrance to the house and fell to her knees.

"What the hell is going on?" Lightning muttered.

At the very moment she finished speaking the words, the air around her changed again. The chaos and clamor of the battle returned, and another body slammed into her, knocking her aside.

"Watch it!" Lightning shouted, pushing herself up from the ground and brushing sand off her skin. "Serah! Where are you?"

"Are you crazy?" Lebreau's voice shouted. "Your sister's not here! She's dead! Do you hear me, Light?"

"I—" Lightning began, but before she could get another word out, one of the monsters swooped in and crashed into Lebreau, pushing her to the ground. Lebreau cried out in pain just before she landed headfirst in the sand. "Damn! Lebreau!"

"Hey, is it just me, or do you look like you need a hand down there?" a voice called.

Lightning looked toward the source of the sound, and her eyes widened when she saw the brown-haired man from her dream, wearing a black shirt and blue pants. He had two swords strapped to his back, and he carried Lightning's gunblade in one of his hands. As Lightning stared, he jumped down from a platform in the air and landed on his feet right next to her.

"Lightning!" he said. "Get up! We gotta fight."

"I know," Lightning snapped. "What are you doing with my gunblade? Are you some kind of thief?"

"Thief?" the man laughed. "No way. Here, take it."

He handed her the weapon, and she snatched it out of his hands indignantly, unsheathing it and swinging it up so that it bit into the soft skin of his throat. "I've seen your face before," she stated.

"Oh yeah?" the man asked. "Is that so."

Lightning decided against elaborating on the fact that she had seen his face in a dream, of all places. Instead she hissed, "Your name."

"Noel," the man answered casually. "Noel Kreiss. I don't think killing me is in your best interest."

"I wouldn't know," Lightning snapped. "This is only the second time I've ever seen you."

"This is the first time I've ever seen you, Lightning," Noel Kreiss answered.

Lightning gritted her teeth. She knew Serah had told the man her name, but it still jarred her to hear him speak it out loud when he didn't even know her.

"Well," Lightning demanded, shifting her weight from side to side, "where did you come from, Noel Kreiss, and why do you know who I am?"

"Where did I come from? Well, I guess you could say I came here on that meteorite." Noel pointed down the shore a few miles, past the gates and toward the place where, Lightning could see, smoke rose steadily up from a crater that hadn't been there before. Noel hadn't appeared anywhere near that space, though—he had shown up standing on a piece of rock floating right above NORA House. Lightning rolled her eyes.

"Right. You were sent here by someone named Serah, right?" Lightning answered casually. "From Valhalla?"

Noel opened his mouth as if to say something, but seemed to decide against it. He pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Save the conversation for later, Lightning. We have to fight."

"Fine." Lightning broke away from him and turned toward the enemies that surrounded the other members of NORA and the inhabitants of the island. "If you try anything, I'll kill you outright."

"I'm sure you will," Noel sighed. "H-hey! Hold on a second!"

She had only run about a hundred yards when he caught up with her, grabbing her arm to stop her from running any further. "We fight as a team, okay? Your sister sent me. I think we should, uh, work together."

Lightning pinned him with the most suspicious glare she could manage, but when she turned back toward the fighting, she said, "Fine. We'll work together."

"Good," Noel responded.

"At least for now," Lightning snapped, looking back at him again.

They rushed on, taking turns attacking the beasts. Within a few minutes, the fighting ceased, and New Bodhum's shore fell silent again. The villagers moved in groups; NORA took care of Lebreau and brought her back to the house, but Lightning just stood back and watched, alone.

Noel materialized at her side again. "Do you usually hang around by yourself like this?" he asked.

Before she could answer, Gadot and his group took to Lightning's other side. "Lightning! Good to see you're still in one piece," Gadot said, clapping a hand on Lightning's shoulder. "Thought you'd never decide to join in the fighting. Anyway, we gotta few nasty creatures to take care of over by the crater, so I wanted to ask you if you wanted to help."

Lightning didn't respond. She still didn't feel inclined to talk about the dream she'd been having about Serah and the blue-haired woman.

"Now hold on just a minute," Gadot continued, letting his hand slide from her shoulder and stepping in front of her just slightly. "Who do we have here?"

This time Lightning opened her mouth to reply, but Noel spoke before she could. "I'm Noel. Serah sent me."

Gadot snorted. "Yeah, makes a lot of sense, Noel. Serah's been gone for years." He stepped closer to the brown-haired man, scrutinizing him. "Is he tellin' the truth, Lightning?"

Lightning shook her head slowly. "Look, Gadot, I don't need you to drag me into this. I don't know what the hell's going on. You can interrogate him on your own later."

Gadot laughed. "Fine, fine," he answered, turning to the other members of his team. Noel shot her a pointed look and held his hands out as if to say, What's your problem?

"Hey, look, Lightning and I need to talk," Noel said to Gadot. "We'll, ah, be right with you, okay?"

"Yeah," Gadot laughed, looking at Noel and Lightning over his shoulder. "Right. We'll leave you two to your alone time."

"It's not like that!" Lightning snapped, but the man had already called the rest of NORA to him and walked off.

"There's something I really need to talk to you about," Noel began. "It's—"

He broke off midsentence, and Lightning turned around just in time to see the image of Cocoon disappearing in the sky.

"Cocoon," she whispered.

"That was Cocoon?" Noel asked. "I'd never seen it before. No wonder…"

Lightning turned back to him. Where had he really come from? In what place could he not see Pulse's infamous moon? And why did he seem so… so calm about everything?

"What the hell is going on?" she shouted. "First the dreams, then the meteorite, and now this? I don't need this! You know what? Never mind, don't talk to me!"

She stormed back to NORA House, folding her weapon and shoving it back into its sheath. At first she didn't think anyone had followed her, but after a second she heard footsteps in the sand behind her. She didn't turn around until she reached the steps of the house and someone put a hand on her shoulder.

"Lightning," Noel's voice said. "I need you to be with me on this."

"Yeah?" Lightning snapped. "You want me to believe every word you say just because I saw you and Serah in some dream? Is that what it is? Look, I never asked to come here. I never asked you to be here. I never asked you to steal my damn gunblade, for Etro's sake! What on Pulse do you possibly think could change my mind?"

Noel fell silent for a moment. He extended his hand to Lightning, palm up.

"This," he said.