Tales From the New World

#2 Hiking Down Memory Lane

Note: This is a collection, so unless otherwise stated, each story featured here has no connection with any other story in the collection.

Snow pushed branches out of the way while Fang smacked at low-hanging vines with her staff, clearing the path for the rest of their friends. "Boy, this brings back memories, doesn't it," the large man remarked with a grin.

"This new world is just as much of a jungle as the old one," Vanille agreed. Her bright smile revealed that she wasn't at all bothered by this fact. "Lucky for us the monsters are a lot less nasty."

"Still, we should watch ourselves," Lightning—now Claire, though her friends still mostly preferred to call her by her old name—warned. "We never know what could be—Hope, what are you doing?"

The pale haired young man looked up from the book in his hands and gave Lightning a confused look. "Huh?"

"Don't read and walk at the same time," she scolded. "You're going to hurt yourself."

"But Light," he protested, "this author's proposed some real ground-breaking theories on—"

"The science can wait, kid. Right now's adventuring time!" Snow cut him off, smacking his fists together eagerly.

Vanille giggled. "Hope's the only thing that's changed since back then."

"That's because Hope's the only outta y'all that's grown up," Sazh piped up, crossing his arms over his chest with a smirk.

Snow let out a hearty laugh at that, looking entirely unashamed. "That's true. Remember how much trouble the kid had keeping up back then?" he said, ruffling Hope's hair fondly. "And now look at him! All grown up and talking back to Lightning."

Hope batted the bigger man's hand away and scowled at him. "At least I did grow up," he retorted.

"That temper of his is still the same," Fang chimed in with a chuckle as she smacked away another vine.

"But only toward Snow," Vanille contracted, winking at the large man.

"You want to see Hope with a temper, you should've been there after Serah died," Noel decided to include himself in the conversation.

"Ohhh, yeah," Snow agreed, tugging at his collar somewhat nervously.

"After Serah died?" Lightning questioned. Both her and her younger sister looked a mix of confused and curious. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing," Hope said quickly, shooting the blond and brunette a warning look.

His warning went unheeded. "He was maaaaad," Noel dragged out with a shudder. "Hope never struck me as the violent type before that, but..."

"Guys..." Hope tried again, his voice dangerous.

"After Serah died and it became clear that you weren't coming back," Snow said, addressing Lightning, "he just kind of flipped out."

"Right," Noel agreed. "Those beasts from the chaos came, right? And for that whole first year he was like, Rage! Rage! Rage!"

"It was intense," Snow added.

"Yeah, and Snow was totally useless at the time because he was grieving over Serah's death, so it was up to me to handle the crazy-train over here," Noel said, pointing at Hope with his thumb. "You can't stop a crazy-train."

Snow threw an arm around Hope's shoulder and grinned. "This guy mercilessly mowed down those fiends for months before he finally calmed down and started using his head again," he continued for Noel. "It was grisly. And after that, he got all creepy and withdrawn. Rarely pulled his nose out of a book."

Lightning and everyone else who hadn't been there at the time looked shocked. The ex-soldier looked at Hope with disbelief in her eyes. "Really?"

Hope looked uncomfortable. "I don't exactly remember that time too well," was his response.

"He was looking for any way to bring you back," Noel took up the baton again. "He was convinced that everything could be fixed if you were there. Which was true, now that we're looking back on it, but Snow and I weren't really of the same mindset back then, as you know..." he trailed off guiltily.

Vanille grabbed everyone's attention when she clapped her hands together and made a cooing noise. "Oh, that's so sweet," she delcared, looking from Hope to Lightning. "He never stopped believing in you."

Lightning's cheeks reddened, as did Hope's.

"But it's hard to imagine Hope going into a murderous rage," Serah, spoke up, bringing her index finger to her lips thoughtfully. "I just can't see it."

"Those two are probably exaggerating," Lightning said, crossing her arms and giving Snow and Noel a look. "Anyway, let's all leave this for another time and focus on the task at hand. I'd prefer to reach our campsite before dark."

Later that evening, the group was setting up their tents and chattering merrily around the campfire when Yeul lifted her head and looked searchingly around the camp, a confused expression on her face. "Where is Hope?"

Meanwhile, deep in forest a short ways from camp, a tall figure chuckled and flicked blood off his gleaming boomerang as he stood over the corpses of three enormous brown bears. "I'll teach you to get close to Lightning," he muttered lowly, his pale green eyes flashing wickedly in the moonlight.

"Meh, leave him alone," Snow brushed off the question with a shrug. "I'm sure he's fine."

w00t! I wasn't expecting to write another dribblet so soon, but here it is. This is just a short, silly thing, but I hope you enjoyed it regardless.