Hope looks at the two figures, bound and asleep lying next to each other on the bench behind the ragged, strange man. His eyes take in the faint signs of bruising on each of their faces, and the way that they are tied with a bit of frayed rope. There are signs of struggle on their wrists. Neither of them were held here by their own will, and they didn't get knocked unconscious without a fight.

Why are they both here? What do they have to do with this meeting? How did they get here… Hope's questions are varied, and they shout in his brain to the backdrop of his heart screaming out in pain at seeing these two women in their current state.

In time with the thuds of his heartbeat, his emotions are calling out in sync with every passing moment, "No! No! No! No!" The roar of blood that rushes to his ears is almost deafening.

He keeps his private agony to himself, his eyes showing only the briefest flicker of pain. Bhunivelze can't know the feelings that are in his soul, the old god could never understand. Hope mustn't give away his true feelings up so easily, he must stay strong; not only for himself, but for the two women who are depending on him so much right now.

Sazh, however, has a harder time processing the image in front of him. "What? Lightning? And…Alyssa?" He says Alyssa's name with such a confused, hurt tone. He takes a step forward. "What have you done to them? Who are you? What's going on?" Sazh's need for answers, and his pain at seeing his friends the way they are, overwhelms his ability to think rationally. He takes another step toward the barred cell, and Hope espies the ragged man smiling, and moving closer to them on his bench. Sazh takes another measured tread, and the man starts to stand in slow timing with Sazh's boots.

The look in the blue eyes of the stranger doesn't sit well with Hope. There is insanity there, and the fact that the two girls are somehow here in this land means that this stranger possesses knowledge and movement that neither he nor Sazh has. They need to proceed more carefully, and need to keep their distance.

"Sazh." Hope gently calls out his friend's name, his tone extremely controlled, but also brooking no argument. Sazh whirls around to Hope, and at the same moment, the stranger somehow flies to the bars, his feet lifting off the ground in a single moment and drifting toward the edge of the cell. He grasps the bars, and smiles a rictus grin at Hope while Sazh gestures behind him, unknowing of what the stranger is doing behind his back.

"Hope, we can't just sit here and watch this. I refuse. I feel like it's my fault that these two are here, I mean, I'm the one that put this guy in this cage…If it weren't for me doing that, maybe they wouldn't be here right now…"

Hope watches the man grinning behind Sazh, his toes gently levitating off the ground, without giving any of what's happening away to his already agitated friend. "Sazh, it's okay. It's alright. I've got this. He wants me, remember? We are in a pocket of Chaos. Things happen here that may not be what they seem. The smoke and mirrors, right? Things can happen in this Chaos that can't normally occur to the laws of what we know on this world. The enemy will use our emotions and sense of confusion against us. We can't let that happen."

Almost the moment he stops talking, the two Bodhum purge survivors hear a slow clap coming from the prisoner's cell, and they turn to see the man sarcastically clapping his hands outside of the bars.

Hope senses Sazh fuming in anger next to him, and again lays a gentle, restraining hand on his friend's quivering shoulder. He can also see that the strange man has both of his feet on the ground now.

"Ah, that was a beautiful speech, and you are so right." The straw-haired man turns his sky blue eyes to Sazh, and narrows them slightly. "I…I remember you. You're the one who put me in here. I must say, you had foresight to do that. Very good of you. Who knows what trouble I might have been getting into if you hadn't imprisoned me." That being said, the man deliberately stops and turns slowly to the two on the bench behind him, wrists tied behind their backs and sleeping propped up against each other. Giggling softly, he slowly turns back to Hope and Sazh once more. "Oops. Well, I guess I should have said, who knows what OTHER trouble I might have been getting into if you hadn't imprisoned me. Looks like I spoke too soon. Trouble, well, that I've already caused."

"And that you will pay for, I can guarantee you that." Sazh says this so calmly. He lays one hand gently on his sidearm, holstered to the outside of his thigh. "We're not leaving without answers."

"How presumptuous of you." The man snickers. "I must say, not only did you apprehend me a month ago, but you also surprised me by having the courage to face me once again after all this time. I wasn't expecting seeing you again so soon. You surprised me twice. That's very good of you." He pauses speculatively here, then twists his head to face Sazh dead-on. "Your friend's right though, you know. We are in the pocket of Chaos. Things happen here that don't normally occur elsewhere. Who knows what could happen? Fair warning to a worthy adversary. Don't be caught off-guard."

Hope goes to step forward, and the moment he shifts, the man immediately snaps his gaze toward him. "Thank you for answering my summons, Hope Estheim. I'm glad you could make it. I've been waiting a long time for this." He sizes Hope up with a quick lowering of eyes, then gazes back into Hope's face. "I must say, though, you are a bit…less than I had expected. I've heard so much of you."

"Then I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage." Hope speaks up, his tone louder than he normally speaks. He is brave against his fear, not wanting to show his true feelings to this mysterious man. "I haven't heard anything about you. Who are you?"

"And you're on point, to boot. Very well. Introductions are the first part of any meeting, are they not?" The man steps back, with more energy than a food and sunlight deprived man ought to be. He sketches a mock bow. "Allow me to present myself as…a vessel. I had a name once, I think, but I've been told to forget what it was. My birth name isn't important. Nothing's important save the mission."

Hope goes to take a step forward, but the man snarls in an animalistic fashion, almost throwing himself against his cage. He lunges forward so hard that the bars bend against the force of his body slamming against them. He reaches a hand out, his long fingernails swiping at Hope. The talons miss Hope's face by mere inches, and upon missing raking his target, the prisoner hisses, baring his yellowed teeth.

Sazh swallows loudly, but speaks softly afterward. "Impossible. He should be weak. There's no way a man in his condition can move like that."

Hope glances at his old friend out of the corner of his eye, and simply whispers, "Smoke and mirrors," before glancing back to the front. Sazh makes a grumbling noise to the affirmative.

Noting the elongated nails on the captive man, Hope takes a cautious step back. The swipe was too close. Okay, I'll bite. He thinks to himself. I'll play along with this little game, as long as it gives me the answers I'm looking for.

"What is your mission?" The man-child queries bluntly.

The thing behind the bars flicks his wall-eyed gaze to Hope. "Why, it's getting to see you, dear. Meeting, like this, face to face." He brings his vision back to Sazh, who has kept the light trained on this man during their entire conversation thus far. "I'm sorry that I couldn't be more presentable, but you can blame the vessel's appearance on this one here. It's under his orders that I have been kept in this physical…state. But that's irrelevant." Finding his focus once more, the man visibly shudders and gathers his thoughts. The look he skewers on Hope is intense.

"I'm here. Mission accomplished." Hope snorts back. "But something tells me that there's more to this story than just this meeting."

"The boy possesses his wit still. That is good. That mind will be needed later, for the days to come." The thing closes his eyes deliberately, then smiles before slowly opening his lids once more. "The mission was always to bring you here. You know from whence my orders came. I am told you are closer to the source of the True God than even I, his mouthpiece on this world, can ever be." Hope swears that a look of…jealousy?...shudders over the man's features before he wrests his feelings back under control. "I don't see how you could be closer. I am looking at you, and there is nothing that meets the eye that can be so special. Tell me, boy, what about you, either on this world, or the last, has attracted the attention of a god?" He turns his neck. "You would be amazed at the acts that this one had to commit in order to receive the acknowledgement the vessel is presently given. All worth it, in the end." The smile is beatific, happy.

All of this show is enough to turn Hope's stomach. "Acts like what you've done to my friends?" Hope's disgust and concern for the women behind him come to the forefront in a moment of sheer desperation, and inwardly he chides himself for showing his hand. He juts out his chin and brings his hand back to his side, but the action is too little, too late. The sparkling, knowing look in the eyes of the thing that may once have been human show Hope that he has taken his outburst in with understanding.

"Ah, yes, many acts have been made such as this, and worse. But don't worry. The life of this vessel is coming to an end. The months of no light and food have proven too hard for this frail frame to take. The moment that this body becomes of no further use to the God, it will be consumed for fuel." The thing holds up its own limp wrist with a calculating look, as if considering the amount of minutes the body had left to hold the shambling man up. The thing snaps back to look at Hope with a jerky, odd movement. The man sighs. "I fear that the time is too close, so we must hurry this meeting. All will be made right, though. All of the steps, all of the countless hours ticking in the dark are worth the wait. All is made clear by having you step into this pit of wretchedness. You came. We are speaking. That is all that matters-not the steps that have been taken to bring this rendezvous to fruition. All is made right by your presence."

Hope is feeling both appalled and intrigued by the words that are coming out of this…man's mouth. "Wha-what do you mean?" His voice sounds so much like that of the fourteen year old boy he abandoned so long ago on the rooftops of Palumpolum.

"You're here, Mr. Estheim." The man bores his forehead into the bars, rubbing his head hurtfully into the iron. "Any previous doubt that I may have had about you existing is gone. If I ever needed definitive proof that the word of the Old God is the one of truth during this baneful existence in this cell, it has come at last. The wait was worth it. You are the proof, if I ever needed it. I never did, by the way, but now it's irrefutable."

Hope rails at these words from the very depths of his soul. "This is such a thing as free will. I decided to come here on my own, against my friends' judgement! No God, in the history of ever, has claimed to possess free will. I denounce any God from controlling my actions, and I denounce you!" Hope is seething, and Sazh slaps a hand on the young man's shoulder. The man bats his eyelashes slowly and looks sideways at Hope, showing only a corner of an insipid smile.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa." Sazh jumps in front of Hope, shielding Hope's vision of the man behind the bars, and hunches over to look Hope square in the eye. "Look at me Hope, look at me! This guy's getting to you, man. What did you tell me earlier? Smoke and mirrors? He's trying to bait you, Hope. Don't let him! You're smarter than that!"

Hope has felt so proud his entire life of being smarter, but sometimes, you need passion to get things done-not logic. Today is a rare day where Hope's heart leads him, and not his head. He reaches in to that closed-off part of himself that he said goodbye to not long ago, the child that raged at a fate that he could never control. Latching on to hurt and sorrow, he slams an arm into Sazh's side, pushing him out of the way.

Green eyes glinting, he takes a step closer, and the man turns to face him, eyes wide and teeth showing. "Look at me, thing. You have given up the very part of you that made you human. You are a shell-an empty vessel. If you really are going to Bhunivelze, then make sure to report everything you see back to him-you're going to see him very soon. I will send you there, personally." Hope's speech comes from gritted teeth, and he even surprises himself that he isn't yelling.

He grabs the bars, and the thing jumps up to meet him on the other side, arms outstretched. Hope reaches past the bars before the man can react, grabs him by his ratty collar, and pulls him close. He almost gags on the stench, but is too focused to allow himself to react.

With no fear, he grabs a fistful of material and slams the guy into the bars, pulling him quickly toward the metal. There is a satisfying crunch as the man's head meets the iron, and the man looks at him, blood trickling from an immediately swollen cut across the bridge of his nose.

Hope's chest is heaving, and his body is shaking, and he breathes directly into the man's face. "Look into my eyes and see your doom. Look into my eyes so you can tell your master that I have no fear of his presence. I will not go quietly into that good night. Feel the pain that I will use to fight back."

Hope swears that that look in the man's face turns from sadistic glee to doubt and amazement-his pupils dilate and he stares slack-jawed at Hope's expression.

That look is snuffed out in the next moment due to Hope smashing his face once again into the iron. The man's shoulders slump, and the arms droop next to his sides, and Hope finds himself mostly holding the man up by the tenuous threads of his stained attire.

"Hope, Hope my man, let's be real. This guy doesn't have much fight. Hope, if you're not careful, you're…you're going to kill him. Look at him, Hope. This guy…he's defenseless and fatigued."

"I know." Suddenly Hope finds himself with his voice strained and breath ragged. He brings the man once again up to his face, and realizes that he has to look down at the broken face where he originally was meeting the man eye-to-eye. The prisoner has slumped dejectedly in only a few moments.

"Did you really think that I wouldn't do anything to protect my friends? What you have done crosses a line. You expected me to be civil with a God that tortured me for so long? You are one, lone man right now, in a very vulnerable position. You were disposable the moment I saw my friends tied in that corner. You really didn't think Sazh and I could take you on, in your state? Sazh put you behind these bars, he can open the door and we can come in and make this far messier than it needs to be."

Hope realizes this last statement is a very poor choice of words, due to the festering excrement behind them with the most pungent smell, but he checks this thought in the back of his mind without regard.

"Now, I'm going to ask you just one time. How did you get these girls here?" Hope's face is so close now to the man, who is now peering up at him blearily from one cracked eye. The other is swollen shut already. Hope's breath fans the man's greasy hair, they are so close.

He shakes the prisoner to jolt him into speaking, and after a moment, the man just laughs maniacally. The chortle starts out as a soft laugh, so low that only the slight shake of his shoulders gives him away, but then grows in intensity to where he belly laughs, throwing his head back and laughing from the pit of his stomach. Hope raises an eyebrow, though it's hard to do, since his forehead is drawn down so low in anger.

Sazh exhales loudly behind them. "Where does this dude get the strength?" He wonders aloud, and hearing his old friend's voice snaps Hope out of his temporary shock.

"He doesn't, Sazh. He's dying, and he's going to meet his God in Chaos soon. He's not going to tell us. He knows he's dead either way, and this is his last act of rebellion: he's not going to give us any information. He knows we are stuck-there's nothing we can do to make him talk. We're too far away to bring him to any sort of aid to nurse him back into health-he'll die before he gets to medical attention, and he knows it. And he knows we know it. So he's in the position of strength-even as he uses the last of his strength to defy me." As he speaks the words, Hope knows it to be true. This asshole has sat down here, wasting away, biding time and fervently awaiting this meeting. Now that this day has come, he can release his pent-up energy and go to his grave, knowing that his energies have been well spent. He can spit in the face of Hope's frustration by not giving up his little secret. He will know that even after he has died in this miserable forgotten holding pen in the middle of the desert, Hope will still be at a loss as to how this can even be a possibility. That is all that matters-that, and getting to see Hope as he is lost and confused. It makes his own pain that he has had to endure all the more bearable.

Powerless, shaken and hurt and angry, Hope lets the prisoner go, and he immediately falls to the slick cobblestone floor, curling up into the fetal position upon impact. Slowly, still laughing as tears run from the corners of his eyes, he rolls onto his back, able to still look up at Hope and watch him in his frustration and despair.

Hope doesn't want to watch the thing that used to be human waste away into a pit of depravity on the floor. It's disgusting. Bhuni took something that was healthy and pure, and once again, has twisted a life form into a meaningless shell. Look at that thing on the floor laughing at Hope to his face hits to close to home. Hope's an emotional wreck, and it doesn't help that the girls are so close by. It's almost too much to handle, but he bears it…

"No." Hope says, so lowly that it's almost a whisper.

Sazh steps up next to him. "Huh? What'd you say, my man?"

Hope clenches his gloved fists. "No. I said…NO!" And, with a great exhalation of anger and shame, he thrusts out his hands to the cell bars…and something that defies physics happens next.

The bars disappear.

The bars. Literally. Just disappear-upon impact with Hope's gloved hands.

Blinking, shaking in disbelief, Hope first looks at the space where the prison cell bars were only a moment ago, to the empty space where they once stood. They just…went away. Vanished. Without a sound or a trace. Even the ground where the bars went through the stones is smooth, as if they had never supported the steel beams at all.

Hope looks down, aghast and mouth open, at his hands. He flips them front and back, and flexes his fingers, but nothing looks any different.

Sazh isn't so quiet.

"Did you see that? What the HELL just happened? No! No…this isn't possible!" Sazh is stepping forward, waving his arm where the bars once were, and stepping through the spot where they were only a moment previously.

The chuckling continues from the man on the floor, who is too weak to get up now. "See. Witness the power of the God for yourself. Now, you cannot deny your eyes or your senses. See how he brought you here. See how he can enslave even the people you care most about. See how he can change the things around you, how he can manipulate the mind and matter. You are nothing. I am nothing. He is the only thing that matters."

Hope can't even hear the words. His ears are ringing, blood pounds to his brain. He takes a staggered step back. His eyes can't open any more, as he brings his trembling arms up to his face.

"This is smoke and mirrors, right? Hope, tell me that this has something to do with the Chaos. Or tell me that this is just a dream. Either way, tell me that you just didn't make these bars disappear just by touching them. That's not possible. There is no magic in this world."

The man coughs out a gurgle, and with a rattling intake of breath, appears to say something. He even tries to hold up his head to look at Sazh, who is pacing back and forth. He brings a finger up to gain attention, but then sighs deeply, rolling his eyes into the back of his head and dropping his skull loudly onto the floor. The crack that sounds when his head smashes onto the stones is almost deafening in the momentary silence that has fallen on the group. Hope doesn't need to bend over him and check his vitals to know that the man is dead.

Sazh doesn't touch the cadaver either. "Hope. We have to get the fuck out of here, man. Who knows what can happen next. Hope, we have to get these ladies conscious somehow and go back to ground level so we can figure this shit out. Get a team of your buddy scientists down here or somethin'. This is some next-level shit and I don't want to be any part of it. That guy didn't act like that when I first brought him down here. He just started talking about Bhunivelze so I kept him here until we could get here. I didn't know it would take this long-I didn't want him to die-but I think he's dead-and you've turned Superman or some shit on me just now and I can't handle this. If Bhunivelze is coming into this world we have to figure out something, and figure it out fast."

Sazh's words to spur into action rouse Hope, knowing that what his friend is saying is true.

"You're right, Sazh, we DO have to get out of here. We're still in the pocket of Chaos. We have to get our friends out of here and safe. And then I have to run some tests on myself." He thinks methodically, he has to, in order not to break down. He has once again pocketed the angry, spiteful Hope of his youth in order to regain control of his sanity and his senses. He has to think about other people, and takes things one step at a time. Slowly, straightening his spine, he lowers his hands and breathes out. "Besides, the smell in here is starting to putrify me. I can't wear these clothes again as it is-they have to be burned. And I need a shower." He can't think about the dead man on the floor right now. Sazh and he have to carry the women out of here, all the way back to the surface. That shriveled, pitiful soul was a human once-he'll have to send someone down here to give this man a proper burial. Over anyone living, he can understand the turmoil of what it's like to be manipulated by Bhunivelze, and no matter how taunting or twisted or evil, he has to respect that the unidentified man on the floor in this hellhole was once a person with feelings and emotions. He will have to find out who he once was, and-

-no. He has to put the horse before the cart, not the other way around. His mind is jumping ahead of the present. Sazh has already walked over to the women breathing on the bench, bruised and slumped against one another back-to-back in order to give support.

Sazh bends on one knee, a hand on the shoulder of each woman, and starts to jostle them lightly. "Hey, ladies, wake up, you're in a bad place. Hey, listen to me right now, we have to get you out of here. It's me, Sazh, your old pal. Hope is here, and he's…well, we're here to rescue you. C'mon, now, time's-a-wastin', there's plenty of time to sleep later. Listen to my voice, hear me, know that I'm your friend." His jostles become slightly more agitated, and Hope walks over to them. He kneels down next to Sazh, helping him out by placing his hands on the other shoulders that Sazh doesn't already have a firm grip on.

"Hey, Sazh is right, it's me, Hope, come on now, we have to get you girls out of here." He says the words gently, and at his touch, the girls disappear.

This time, instead of the prison bars suddenly evaporating as if they never were, the vision of the two females wavers for a moment, and the grip that he had on their shoulders seems to melt in his hands like sifting sand. There is a faint glow, and the two melt away.

"Smoke and mirrors." Sazh says after a silent moment, where the two stare dumfounded at the now-empty space.

Hope wants to scream. In fact, he does so, tilting his head back and roaring at the ground above them. Eyes clenched shut, he bows his head afterwards into his hands, covering his face from the wracking sobs that assault his body. Sazh stares unblinking at the bench where the vision of their two friends once was, then snaps out of his quiet reverie.

"C'mon, now, Hope, let's get out of here. This ended up being a good trick-I'm just glad Light and Alyssa really weren't here. If there's any good takeaway out of this, is that we can assume that they're safe."

"No one's safe anymore." Hope mumbles through his wet, pressed hands. Sniffling, he looks up, and wipes his nose on the back of his glove. He blinks the last of the tears from his eyes, and gets his ragged breathing under control. "That's just it, Sazh. No one's safe now. We have to tell the others. We have to plan our next method of attack." Trying to think of the next move, of keeping one foot in front of the other, Hope rises up from his kneeling position on the hard floor and goes to exit the dank chamber.

Sazh restrains him by the lightest of touches on the shoulder. "And just how do you suppose we fight a god without any magic?" He whispers, his voice echoing off the cold stone walls.

Hope turns his head ever so slightly to address Sazh behind him. "We just have to beat them at their own game. We have to fight within the pockets of Chaos." With those cryptic words, he shrugs off Sazh's touch and pounds his booted heels into flight back to the surface.