Welp! Here is the next chapter... After this 3 more to go and then a break to prepare for the next part. After I get all of this posted, I'll take off a month from posting to get a good bulk of the next story written and for family shit.
Anyways! Why you are really here.
The quiet was thick when he woke up. Hope was lying on his side on the ground and staring into the wide darkness. His body felt weird. Weak and in pain he closed his eyes back and didn't move more. Even breathing hurt at this point. As he mentally took stock of his body he realized that he was in his fourteen year old body again. The desirable l'cie body that the god had wanted. The pain that stretched through his form mostly started at his extremities where large portions of transformation must have taken place.
He wasn't sure what exactly was don't to him physically to change his appearance but he was sure that it was something he should not have survived multiple times. With a deep breath Hope opened his eyes and sat up. The pain that ripped through him should have been debilitating but instead it was almost a comfort. He couldn't feel much else honestly. As he stared into the darkness where he was sure that Bhunivelze was watching.
"What have you done to me?" He asked quietly, his voice scratchy and unchanged. A weird side affect of things that the God didn't understand about humans.
"Finally made you permanently appealing." The voice from the darkness responded.
"I'll believe that when I see it." Hope shrugged idly and bit his lip harshly at the pain of even that simply movement.
"Is something wrong?" The God finally leaned into the light. His unchanging face almost startling against the darkness. Hope shrugged again, gritting his teeth. It was awkward to look at the God. As he looked at him now, he could see similarities between their faces. He wasn't sure if it was because of the bit of God's soul within him or if the god's face had morphed to start aligning with his vessel.
"Why would you care?" Hope finally bit out.
"You are to be my host… I would like to know the state of the body that is mine." The god replied and Hope glared at him, forgotten fury blaring to life.
"This is now and forever my body." He hissed lowly. "Whatever you do to me I won't back down and I won't die."
"Oh have you forgotten everything we talked about? You won't die. You will be absorbed and trust me… My powers are greater then whatever pathetic resistant your soul could hope to achieve."
"Even if I can't stop you. And I swear I'll resist you to the very end! My friends, my family will stop you."
"That girl? Etro's fallen night? Or are you talk about that chaos demon that you fell in love with? All will fall before my might and you know it. You know everything will end and the New World is mine to control. I will tear this terrible world asunder and make a new world. A beautiful world full of perfect creatures."
"That won't happen. I won't let you control me for this." Hope insisted and the God laughed softly, emotionlessly.
"Yes, you managed to beat my creations but you seem not to realize exactly who or what I am." The god for the first time revealed his full self. "A hundred years have passed since I put you in that box. Not only one hundred years but I have managed to truly get your body right. Soon I will have tamed your chaos as well and finish the new world. There is nothing you can do to stop me."
Hope deflated at those words. The pain that he assumed was now to be ever present was due to the meddling of Bhunivelze. He wanted to inquire as to what the god had done to him but found he didn't have the energy. He slowly sat down and looked over his arms and noticed the strange markings.
"Don't worry… Those will fade with time." The god murmured as he disappeared back into the darkness.
Hope closed his eyes. He was beginning to feel helplessness building up on the edges of his awareness and he tried to quash it down. Bhunivelze's large hand reached out and picked him up.
"Let us begin."
When Hope woke up in the dreamscape of his mind, he signed to himself in utter registration. This place gave him Hope but knowing that the other had sent him here meant that, the god planned to use it against him. Or at least try to. As he eased up into a siting position he looked around the room.
It was at sunset and the sky outside his window was beautiful. Standing up he stretched his arms. It was Academia as he remembered it. But it was what was outside the door that worried him. Moving slowly, he pulled on clothes and exited into the main room straightening up his tie.
Once outside he was surprised and almost bitterly angry at the sight of his mother sitting primly and properly at the kitchen counter. She looked wrong somehow. He didn't know if it's because of the god or because of how long ago the memory was. She looked up at him and that soft smile was definitely from his memory and he wanted to relax but knew that he couldn't.
"I was waiting for you to wake up." She spoke softly, her voice as he remembered.
"No you weren't." He responded quickly. He had wanted to sound cold but instead he sound desperate. Scared.
"Now what's this about? Am I suddenly not allowed in my own son's house?" She stood up and placed her hands on her hips. "I'm your mother after all and you should adhere to my words."
"I would if my mother ever spoke like that." Hope responded and pushed past her to go and get a drink from the refrigerator. He didn't want to be mean or cruel but he needed to get it across to Bhunivelze that his mother was off limits.
"Fine!" She shouted throwing her hands up in the air. "You want to reject me for no earthly reason after I died for you! FINE!"
He was taken aback by her shouting and stepped backwards. He opened his mouth and closed it with nothing to say.
"I sacrificed my life for you and find a way to finally see you after all this time. You were always useless. Spoiled and whiny! Everything I did for you rejected. And then you held back those brave enough to try and stop the fal'cie from creating more like me! You useless wretch!" She slapped him then, the violence of her action surprisingly Hope immensely.
This was not his mother. His mother would never act like this or do this and yet. Something in his heart ached. She slapped him again he sunk down the wall.
"I regret ever having you! You are the worse!" She continued on yelling and berating him. He closed his eyes and tried to block out those hurtful words said in his mother's voice. When the tirade was over and Hope opened his eyes. The room was empty as if she'd never been there.
Nervously Hope opened his eyes to what he thought was the real world. Before him in the dark place wasn't the same place he was in before. The god sighed deeply and looked him over. Hope studied him idly as the god regarded him. Hope placed a hand on his chest and glared up at the god.
"You are definitely proving very hard to break." The god murmured quietly as he leaned back and regarded the other carefully.
"My love, mind and emotions make me how I am! You won't take that from me easily." Hope protested clenching his teeth against the harsh pangs of pain that erupted along his body, mostly around his joints.
"You really don't understand do you?" The god gave his emotionless laugh again. "I have no use for a human. For what it is that you call humanity. Especially yours. What I need now is a vessel. So that I may descend upon the world and guide them to their fates."
Hope wanted to refuse. Felt everything within his being surge up to refuse. Instead he felt as if the hope had drained form him. He slumped down in defeat and tried to focus on anything but the knowledge that he'd lost. He had lost everything. Even if he managed to escape on pure good luck. He knew that his body would not survive without god's power and decided that there was nothing else that he could but wait for death.
Hope stared around the apartment and picked up the portrait of his family. The one with his parents and Noel. He hugged it to his chest and closed his eyes. He prayed for strength and to meet those that he had missed. And he missed his family so much. He wouldn't allow Bhunivelze to win. To destroy him. He knew that he couldn't beat the god. And he knew that a lot inside himself had been destroyed by the torture, and that parts of himself felt broken beyond repair. He slowly pulled back and gently began slipping pictures of of their cases.
He took out the family portrait. The picture of the six l'cie as well as the other pictures that stored his memories and his emotions. Once he had the full stack in his hands, he headed towards the bedroom. Having mapped out his mind space he understood that the God could not come in this place. Could not affect it and could not see it. It was the part of him that was fully formed by chaos. His subconscious mind so to speak.
After placing most of the pictures into the nightstand. He held in his hands the one of him and Noel. The one with that special smile on Noel's face. He found himself unwilling to put the picture down. Tears pricked his eyes and he clutched the picture tightly as he cried. This was the last thing he had power over within his life and even knowing it was the right choice he could barely bring himself to do it.
After what seemed like hours of crying but couldn't be that long. Hope laid the picture into the nightstand. He slammed the drawer shut before he could change his mind. He locked the innocuously looking drawer. He swallowed hard. The next step was to leave the room and lock the door. Effectively locking away his emotions and maybe even his memories. He didn't want to give up himself.
Hope stood up resolutely and headed for the exit. At the door he paused and stared at the bed. In this room he had shared the deepest parts of himself with Noel. Things that he hadn't shared with the others of his self made family. Things that honestly could only be shared with a lover. He opened the door and stepped out. He turned and shut the door. And with a heavy heart, he locked it.
Hope stood staring numbly up at Bhunivelze. The god was inspecting him to check and make sure the state of his body wasn't deteriorating. Hope found that he physically didn't really feel or notice anything outside of the constant pain but he figured nothing could be done about that. It was a good day though, thinking pain scales he'd assume about a five tops. As the god tilted his head to check the binding on his neck he sucked in a harsh breath. That was definitely an either. That hurt far more then he was expecting it to. Finally the god murmured something in an appraising voice.
"I assuming that means that this alteration really will hold?" He asked quietly.
"You say that is if you are sure of my failure." The god hissed as he turned Hope's head rather roughly and the man in a boy's body gasped in pain.
"This is the tenth iteration of my l'cie body that you have attempted. While the amount of power that you wield increases chances of success often times in experiments there are many failures until the subject material is understood." Hope responded and the god found himself staring at the utter changes in his vessel's responses to him.
"This is very true." The god of light dropped the body and slid back into the darkness. "But there are still more tests to make sure that things are still okay."
Unable to stop himself, his soul hurting. Hope forced his way back into the room within his mind. He dove under the covers and cried harder then he'd ever had in his life. He clung to the covers, to his feelings, his emotions and his total sense of self. He wanted it all back. And yet, even as he cried and tried to reassemble himself it wasn't working.
The memories came back all too readily. Settling in his mind gently but the emotions didn't come. Almost as if having a mind of it's own, they stayed apart from him. Gasping in realization he searched for the key to the bedside table but couldn't find it. Slamming his hand against the table, more tears found their way down his cheeks. In anger and desperation he tugged at the handle on the drawer desperately hoping to open it.
He could feel the vestiges of his consciousness trying to awaken it. He fought it and tried to stay. He couldn't do this. He didn't know why he thought he could. He fought and clung to the draw but an invisible force tugged him backwards out the room. In desperation he closed the door. Hoping that would be enough to keep it safe.
"So… you thought that you could lock away your memories from me." Bhunivelze seemed almost gleeful as he stared down at Hope. "Did you really think that your memories were the function of chaos? As if a God wouldn't have such things?"
"I never said I did, did I?" Hope asked as he slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. His whole body held a deep seated ache that made him want to fall back to God was studying him again. As if looking for new weaknesses.
"The body is holding quite well." The God finally spoke again and Hope looked down to see smears of blood on his body no forms of shape shifting.
"I guess that is a good thing." Hope replied but the God merely laughed in his monotone voice.
"It took me a while to guess what would most appropriately make you perfect. But I think I have figured it out. Your body will constantly reject the change because you want to look the way you were before I took you. But I have fully asserted my will over you and thus I assume that whether you tell me or not. The dualities are causing you constant pain."
Hope shrugged idly and looked up at the massive creature before him. Honestly the pain didn't matter to him, his emotions fully locked away within his subconscious all he had left were the more physical of the emotions. The pain eased over him in ways that were becoming expected. He sat up a bit straighter.
"Then this body holds through constant transformation?" He asked as he examined his hands. "Does this mean that I will continuously bleed?"
"You really think your will is stronger then a god's."
"That depends." Hope looked at him, sparks of what he hoped were anger flitted through his mind. "Is it your personal will or the divine will?"
The smack was fully expected as he rolled with the force of it and didn't move afterwards. While he wanted to do something he found that there was nothing else he could do. He sat up again and watched as the god stared at him.
"You are so close to being ready." Bhunivelze murmured and Hope couldn't help himself but laugh. The perplexed look that crossed the god's face caused him to laugh even harder. He couldn't help himself. Had the god thought that the changes in his behavior came from him?
"You seem to think that you have somehow tamed my spirit and I must say that you are incorrect." Hope replied firmly. "You are by no means someone or well… something capable of understanding humanity nor me."
"This resistance is something that I am willing ot stand. For you see… When you become my vessel… my spirit will not only overwhelm you… it will destroy you."
Hope was not inside his dream space. Or at least not the same part of it. Instead of in his apartment, he was in his office. As he sat at the desk unsure of what it was that he should be doing the door opened as his father appeared. The man looked harried and nervous.
"Come quickly." He spoke as he pulled him up. "Your mother is ill."
Unconcerned with such dreams that Bhunivelze would send him, he pulled out of his father's grip. The man sent him a look of shock and pain, but Hope found that it didn't even phase him.
The scene changed anyways and he was at his mother's bedside. He noticed with a detached air that it was most likely the injuries that she has sustained at the Hanging Edge so very long ago. He watched as she looked him, her beautiful face marked in pain. From the first time in a dream space, he was in his younger body.
"You are already dead." Hope replied turning to walk away.
"No." She rasped and the realness of her voice gave him pause. The cold demeanor not quit as strong as it once was. Sensing the weakness, the specter on the bed laughed. "You really are a weak, petulant child aren't you?"
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO USE MY MOTHER AGAINST ME." Hope forced himself out the door.
In the waiting room was a guilt ridden Snow, who looked up at him with wide eyes. "What are you doing kid? Go be with your Mom."
"That's not my mother." He told this new specter bitterly. Snow stood up to make further comment. Bhunivelze must have not realized the tumultuous relationship that he and the large man had. In no way, not now, not ever would Snow cow him into anything. He shoved the large man back into his seat.
"In case you have forgotten Bhunivelze. I won't fall for any or your tricks." He called up to the ceiling and then he looked forward at Snow. "And to send someone to me who still hasn't grown up enough to know what's important. As if that would change my mind about anything? You big oaf… I know you aren't really him. But damn it when are you going to realize that all Serah ever wanted from you was to stay by her side."
That seemed to be the magic words to remove him from this scene as well. Mentally he took a deep breath in relief. Being faced with his mother was honestly harder then he wanted to admit.
In this new scene he was back in his apartment. He turned in surprise to see Vanille there watching him curiously. He turned face and walked out of the room.
Unfortunately that was probably the worst choice. Inside the room, it was the guest room was Noel. He was sleeping peacefully and Hope felt something in his heart clenched. He couldn't help himself as he moved towards the bed. It wasn't real. This Noel was bound to say terrible things to him. Or even do horrible things. But first he just wanted to pretend.
When he was close enough to touch, a fast hand grabbed him and he was suddenly under the larger young man. Hope was started to realize that he was still in his younger body. And by the look of it, so was Noel. They stared at each other wide eyed for scant seconds and then Noel rolled over.
"Well that's disappointing. I was waiting for my partner and instead I was sent a child." The voice, mannerisms, everything that came from this 'Noel' was completely not his partner. It made it easier to get up. But it also hurt that he couldn't feel the illusion. "Are you wondering why I'm not like him?"
Hope managed to look over him but said nothing. If Bhunivelze was going to tell him it would happen with or with out his consent anyways.
"You've completely locked him from me. Even on that cursed world I cannot see him. Nor effect him." Bhunivelze leaned forward
"If you think it was me… You are an idiot. Noel is divinely protected by Etro. The chaos is probably surround him like a protective barrier."
"THE CHAOS?!" Not Noel punched him so hard he flew off the bed and into the wall. Godly strength. Bhunivelze had finally been pushed to hard. The fake was on him before he could react. The pummeling of his fists hurt almost as much as it would if it were real life. He closed his eyes. He blocked it all out.
When Hope woke, he could only stare at the sky with detached eyes. He realized dimly that sometime during the beating he must has escaped. He had a vague feeling that he must have escaped the fake Noel's attack. He could blearily recall going into his own headspace one last time. Realizing dimly that he locked all parts of himself away from real this time.
A lone tear trailed down his face. But he could understand why such an event would occur.