AN - You're right, anon comment from previous chapter. I DO bring this shit on myself.
Fang gave a languid stretch and yawned. She was already bored with this place and it's pristine... Niceness. With a sneer at her surroundings, she loped off down the hall and made her way to the courtyard outside.
Sazh was deep in conversation with Lightning, the seemingly permanent scowl on her face deepening at Fang's emergence from the house. The winged man turned to regard the brunette with a welcoming smile. "Ah, Fang. Good morning. Sleep well?"
"Like I was sleeping on a cloud. The ritzy accommodation sure beats the run down canvas cots back at the plant."
Lightning bristled at the comment, the thought of her sister sleeping in a rundown nuclear facility made her stomach turn. Fang gave her a once over and narrowed her eyes, remembering the last several times they'd "interacted". They glared at each other for a few moments, before Fang relented with a roll of her eyes and turned away.
"Anyway, I'm gonna go grab something to eat. I bet you still keep your secret stash where you left it?" she asked, Sazh giving a hum of annoyance, causing Lightning's eyebrows to raise. Fang sauntered off, hips popping with every step that bled arrogance. Before Lightning could question her mentor, Sazh disappeared inside, looking pensive. Her eyes narrowed and she stalked off to the kitchen for answers.
The sounds of rummaging came from the pantry as Fang rifled through the shelving looking for the old secret stash she knew Sazh kept behind a fake wall. "Yessss. Come to mama you beautiful creature." She muttered to herself as she retrieved a bottle of whiskey and pulled it from the hidden shelf. As she was preparing the drink, she picked up on the scent of her intruder over the burn of the alcohol and grinned to herself.
"What's the matter? Annoyed to find out that you weren't the first of his prodigal children?" She quipped from her spot by the cupboard under the bench as she searched for glasses, not bothering to straighten up or make eye contact. Fang could practically feel the heat of the pinkette's anger as the woman shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
The silence inevitably annoyed Fang, so she finally stood up properly with two glasses in hand. She flexed her blue plated arms and poured two drinks, sliding one across the table in an offering of peace. "It's eleven in the morning. And this is a school."
"What's your point?"
More silence, as Fang shrugged and took a drink before setting the glass back down on the bench. "Sazh never told you, I am guessing."
"No. He didn't."
"Hm. I gather he doesn't like to be reminded. You know he and Caius started this place, right?"
Lightning felt her anger flare and a stream of electricity arced off her, zapping a nearby cupboard. The noise startled them both and she blushed, embarrassed at the temporary loss of control. "Sorry." She offered awkwardly, the words causing Fang to smile and drop her guard a little.
"They met a long time ago, before any of us even heard of the word L'cie. Started this place with an inheritance, started branching out and looking for people like us. Let's just say they parted ways over… Philosophical differences. Caius saved my life, I wasn't about to abandon him."
The explanation coupled with Fang's obvious declaration of loyalty left Lightning feeling uneasy. She'd seen reports on Caius, and any few words Sazh offered on the wayward L'cie weren't exactly tame. Knowing that Pulsians would often flock together even without any mutated genes, it just added another layer of blockages that would bind Fang to Caius no matter what. She grew up with a handful of Pulsians back home as a child, and they were all devout to their family and their clan. For this shifter to have turned her back on what she would have likely considered her clan for the sake of Serah… Lightning knew that Fang's actions involving Serah weren't small in scale in the slightest.
"Though in retrospect considerin' my sister ended up here, I probably should have stuck around. O' course, Lady Luck would deliver my sister to you, and yours to me. Funny how fate works."
A stifled huff came from Lightning's mouth and she folded her arms, leaning against the door frame as she stared into the hallway beyond. "Honestly, I expected her to be… Angrier at me."
Fang stirred the drink with a claw and shrugged, remembering the many late night conversations she'd had with Serah over the individual now standing broodingly in the kitchen with her. The anger and hurt often seeped from the young girl, and Fang spent a long time comforting her in whatever way she could.
"She was. For a long time, anyway." Fang replied, seeing a flash of hurt cross Lightning's face before she looked away. "I… Talked her down from a lot of it. Figured all this L'cie business was why you took off. Once Serah realised she had to run as well... She understood your position. Something you and I have in common I suppose, considerin' V... Hex. Ironic that her sister was you, considering the amount of times you've singed my heels in a few of our… Bouts in the past."
"Bouts? Is that what you'd call it?" Lightning said with a small amount of amusement. She stood up from her spot against the frame and moved to walk out. Pausing in her steps, she turned back to face the Pulsian with her hand resting on the doorframe. "If you had have known it was me, would you still have talked her through it? Or left us both to our demons?"
It was hard to say. On one hand, Fang immediately wanted to scoff and deny she'd have even bothered. On the other, the amount of pain that she'd seen Serah in reminded her too much of what Vanille would have been going through from her own strikingly similar actions.
"Nah. I still woulda done it. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't, considerin' what I did to my sister. Even if you are an electrified arsehole."
Lightning thinned her lips at the Pulsian and sighed, leaving the kitchen and her untouched drink behind. Fang took it and knocked it back with a shrug. "More for me then."
The following morning Sazh found the elusive shifter sitting under a tree staring off into the distance. Vanille had gone for a walk with him to try to locate her sister and breathed a sigh of relief when they found her. She was beginning to worry that Fang had taken off again, something that was still very much a possibility from the increasingly haunted look on her face every time she saw her sibling.
"So is your plan to just sit here until the end of time?" He called out, meandering over and sitting down in the shade next to her. Fang immediately tensed at the newfound interruption to her thoughts, but reached over and put an arm around Vanille's shoulder to give her a hug as she sat down on the other side. She had been trying to not be so stiff around her younger sibling, and return to some of that easy contact that wasn't at all easy in execution.
"I was hoping to just have a sleep in the shade, actually. What do you want?"
"I was hoping that you'd tell me what you really want. What do you want to achieve by being here? Sitting under a tree is all well and good but don't you want more?"
Fang suppressed the reflex growl that reared from his words, closing her eyes to control her breathing and any further shifts beyond her claws and arms. Of course she wanted more. She wanted to be free of the curse that nearly cost her sister her life. That turned her entire world upside down and left her on the streets, a "mewling weak thing" as Caius would say. She wanted to not be so angry all the time. She wanted the perpetual taste of blood out of her mouth. She wanted a lot of things she'd never get.
Feeling Vanille's arms slide around her own, she sighed and gave the redhead's temple a gentle kiss. At least there were some things the gods would give her back, relief settling her down. To have her sister by her side again made her heart soar, even if it was shot down every time she saw the scars across her sibling's face.
"You've improved on your speeches, old man. Caius would be proud."
Sazh stood up and stretched his wings before placing his hands on his hips. "Practice. Training. Focus. It's what I offer here, not that I have to tell you that. You've been here before. All these things mean you don't have to be afraid of yourself. Caius was right about one thing, Fang. You are powerful. We all are. But without any sort of discipline all you are is a live wire."
"Was that a crack at the power outlet's expense?" Fang drawled, her thoughts drifting over to the pink-haired elemental that she was still on the fence about. She had yet to determine if Lightning was trying to befriend her or kill her, and that likely changed by the hour. He gestured out to the grounds where Lightning and Snow were training in a friendly sparring match while Serah watched on from the sidelines.
"She was like you when she first arrived. Nothing more than a lightning rod to stick in a field. Didn't know how to ground herself so she was always shorting out the electrics in the house. It caused major problems while she was out in civilisation, she'd unintentionally injure other humans on a semi-regular basis. That's why she was always on the run. If she let an electrical discharge off in a populated area, a lot of people got hurt. Here she learned how to reign it in. Control it. Use it to her advantage. You could too, Yun."
"Don't call me that." Fang snapped, standing from her spot and stalking across the field, bringing the conversation to an abrupt end. Vanille watched her leave, desperate to try to get her sister to just stay and hear them out.
"Lightning! Can you show us that thing you've been working on?" She called out, drawing the older pinkette's attention. Cerulean eyes that crackled with electricity sparked at the redhead's voice and she held a hand up to stop Snow's advances. "How you've figured out how to control the electricity to give you a bit of a boost." Vanille continued pointedly, her stare darting to Fang and then back to the elemental.
Seemingly understanding the intention, she placed her hands down to her sides and generated her namesake from her open palms. She pushed the electricity into the ground and let it propel her into the air, landing in front of Fang with a little stumble. The shifter looked startled and Lightning coughed. "Sorry. Still trying to get a handle on the landing."
Sazh smiled and wandered over, Vanille in tow. "With a little bit more practice we think she'll be capable of some sort of flight. That could be an ambitious goal that may or may not be achievable, but it's something to work on. So come on Fang, how about you show me what you've been working on with Caius?"
A loaded question by far, and Fang knew it. Sazh knew that Caius hadn't been training her in any way or form in terms of her abilities, merely on all the ways she could hunt and kill. A niggling doubt began to eat at her thoughts that maybe that was intentional. Maybe Caius didn't teach her so he could control her. "You know, this and that…" She replied, attempting to evade the question.
"Show me." Lightning suddenly piped up, moving away and beckoning the Pulsian over with a crook of her hand. "I want to know what Caius teaches you in Valhalla, which is obviously not a lot seeing as I've bested you on several occasions now."
"Lightning…" Sazh warned once again, concerned that the elemental was deliberately antagonising and escalating the situation. Fang growled and shrugged her jacket off, her hair growing longer into the familiar fiery mane.
"All right you oversized voltmeter. Let's go. Get this shit out of our system and then I can go back to ignorin' the lot of you." She said, baring her sharp canines as she shifted. Fang brushed past the group, walking purposefully into the open field. She shoulder charged Snow as she passed, still annoyed at him for knocking Serah out. "Outta the way, popsicle."
The blonde man moved back with a chuckle, not fazed in the slightest by the remark. He took Serah by the shoulders and guided her away from the vicinity, sure to put some distance between them. Sazh wanted to step in and stop it but at this point he figured it was far safer to let it run its course. Lightning cast a glance back at her sister, but then quickly over to Hex. The redhead's face was impassive, though her eyes were wide as she stared at Fang's transformation. She zipped over and placed a hand on her shoulder. "We don't need to do this. I don't want to upset you with this."
"No, it's ok. I think… I think it needs to happen. Just don't… Don't hurt her too much."
Fang's ear twitched as she caught the edges of her sister's words and snarled, her back to them. She rolled her shoulders and moved her head around, cracking the bones in her neck slowly. Thinking back over her last few engagements, the elemental always caught her by surprise and when she was raging.
This time was different. She was prepared. This time Fang didn't feel rage. She felt cold. Her own sister siding with the pink-haired L'cie made her feel more alone than ever. She missed her friends back at Valhalla, who would now likely kill her on sight because of her betrayal. Not missing the gasp from Vanille when she had first shifted, it would have been the first time she had seen a full shift since that fateful argument. For Vanille to say that she wasn't scared of Fang was either a gross overestimate of her own coping abilities, or a bald-faced lie. The hollow feeling in Fang's chest grew, and she clenched her jaw to push it out of her awareness.
If there was one thing Caius did teach Fang, it was how to hunt. How to be a beast. And if that was all she was going to be seen as, that was how she was going to be. Fang turned with a set expression, her eyes hollow and calculating.
Vanille saw the shift in her sister's expression and gripped Lightning by the wrist. It was the same face she saw right before she never saw anything from her left eye again. She took a shuddering breath and squeezed the pinkette tighter. "Light, be careful. Please."
"Don't worry about it Hex, I got this."
"You got nothin', zappy. We doin' this or what?" Fang's curt response came from across the field.
They circled each other on the field, Sazh clearing his throat loudly to attempt to get their attention. "Need I remind you that this is lightsparring only. No injuries please."
Fang's lip curled up in a snarl as she placed her arms up in front of her in a defensive position. She knew enough about her previous interactions that Lightning liked to go on the offensive. True to her instincts, the elemental darted forward and placed a sharp bolt inside Fang's defences, sending her skidding back. There was no bite to the electricity so it didn't hurt, allowing Fang to recover quickly.
She watched as Lightning shot forward again, zig zagging along the field and getting inside her guard every time. "You're too slow, Fang." The pinkette quipped with a smirk as she moved backwards, preparing for another round of jabs. She dashed forward at a blinding speed, her momentum suddenly halted by strong claws around her throat.
"And you're too predictable." Fang growled, slamming Lightning into the ground. The elemental's vision hazed as she gasped for breath. There was a low guttural sound from the shifter's throat as she shifted back to a human form, save her arms. Leaning down close, Fang grazed her sharp teeth just lightly against Lightning's throat and moved up to her ear, causing the pinkette to cease her struggling and freeze in fear.
"Lightning!"
"Fang!"
Two sets of voices rang out at the same time, though it was their opposite sisters calling out for the other as Serah stepped forward, worried for Fang while Hex was equally scared for Lightning.
Ignoring them, Fang growled low and gave a devious smile. "You think that every time we've met I haven't been watching you? Your patterns? Your movements? How you favour your dominant side all the time? How you always take a feigned step to the left before going in on the right? You think you've been gaining the upper hand every time we've met but all you've done is given me what I need to end you."
Suddenly releasing her, Fang stepped back and held out a hand to help the elemental up with a sly smile. Lightning didn't take it, scrambling to her feet and taking several paces backwards, breathing heavy. For the first time in a long time, she felt fear. Fear that she could be bested, that all the speed in the world wouldn't help her.
"See that's the thing you've failed to realise. Unlike your namesake, Sunshine, you strike the same place every time." Fang drawled, her eyes narrowed and grin cruel on her face. "We done with this farce now? Because I'm done, Sazh. Watching your charges learn to suppress their powers is ridiculous. You're not teaching them to survive. This pacifist mentality of yours is going to get your children killed."
Without any further opportunity to respond, Fang left them on the field, swinging the jacket over her shoulder. Lightning watched her leave, still feeling the claws around her throat.