After what felt to her like an eternity compressed into a single instant, Lani slowly woke from her slumber.
Or so she thought.
"Rise and shine, sleepyhead," a sarcastic voice greeted her, prompting the bounty hunter to sit up, utterly confused and nauseous.
"Ughh... my fucking head... where are we..?" she groaned at the hooded man who tended to their small campfire in the middle of nowhere. Its flickering light barely kept the pitch-black darkness at bay.
"We're deep into the Spirit World... dangerously close to the Crystal, actually," he offhandedly answered, his face framed in shadow despite the meagre flames' radiance. "It's almost a miracle I found you before it was too late."
"The Spirit World..?" Lani parroted, nervously looking around. "Shouldn't there be, like... y'know... spirits, to call it that?" Her stomach gurgled loudly, and she hunched forward, covering her mouth. "Urk... I think I'm gonna puke..."
"That's a good sign. It means you're not too far gone yet," the stranger replied, producing a rough-skinned, glowing blue fruit from his traveler bag.
The mercenary stared at it for a moment, stumped by its otherworldly appearance.
"Sapphire dragon fruit, fresh from Lady Reis's garden. Helps keep the soul sickness under control," the man explained, chopping it with a knife and handing her a peeled slice.
"Soul sickness? Lady Reis? Okay, hold on a second, amigo. Who are you, and the fuck are you rambling on about?" Lani asked, distrustfully sniffing the creamy azure morsel. "... wait, are you high?"
"... You don't believe in subtlety, do you?" the robed figure snorted. "All right, the undiluted truth, then. You're dead, my brazen friend. Actually, we both are. Welcome to the Cycle of Souls."
The bounty hunter burst out laughing, much to her campmate's irritation.
"Oh my gods, you were stoned after all!" she cackled, eagerly chomping on the dragon fruit. "Man, this must hit even harder than Cactuar juice..."
"Actually, these are mostly used as a hangover cure," he remarked.
Lani's chewing slowed down to a halt.
"Really..? Welp, my disappointment is immeasurable, and my night is ruined..." she declared, licking her fingers. "Pretty tasty, though."
"... Why does the rat even bother..." the stranger sighed, eye-rolling so hard that if eye rolls were audible, Lani would have gone deaf.
"You mean rat as in Burmecian? That's racist, dude," the merc calmly remarked, mentally steeling herself for a fight. "Speaking of 'Mecia... who sent you? Are you with the Jägers?"
"Hah... do I look like a Jäger to you?" the man scoffed, and as he pulled his hood back to reveal his identity, his long, white locks rolled down his shoulders like cascading moonlight, causing an utterly terrified Lani to nearly fall on her back.
"Y-You..! You're that guy! Y-You killed Brahne and massacred her whole fleet!" she stuttered, pointing a quivering finger at Kuja; he looked older than she remembered, but it was definitely him. "It can't be... you died! But if you're here... it means I'm..!"
"... Dead?" the sorcerer smirked, taking sadistic pleasure in her reaction.
"Bullshit... this is bullshit! I'm outta here!" Lani spat, storming off into the inky darkness, but stopping right before she strayed too far away from the safety of the flames.
"And I thought I had a flair for the dramatic," Kuja yawned, much to the bounty hunter's chagrin.
"Shut it! I'm thinking!" she barked back, furiously scratching her left temple. "I can't be dead... this isn't real... this isn't real!" she repeated to herself, trying her hardest to remember when, and most importantly, how, had she ended up stranded in such a nightmarish realm. A portal, perhaps? Or maybe she was just hallucinating, passed out in a ditch after having one too many ales.
"You demanded to know who sent me. Well, I'm here on Freya Crescent's behalf," Kuja stated, this time successfully grabbing Lani's attention.
"Frey-Frey..?!" she gasped, covering her mouth. "Is she... dead too?"
"... You don't remember anything, do you?" Kuja commented, somewhat perplexed. "No, the rat lady is very much alive. Actually, she was about to risk her soul to come rescue you before I volunteered for the task. I owe her my freedom, after all."
Lani slowly returned to the camp and sat next to the fire, still reeling from the shock.
"What do you say we try a little experiment together? Indulge me, maybe we can figure out how you lost your memories," Kuja proposed after a moment in an uncharacteristically merciful tone. "What's the last thing you do remember?"
The bounty hunter sighed, folded her arms and closed her eyes. An unknown visage came to her from the foggy depths of her past.
"... I met a gal at a Lindblumese pub... she was desperate, looking for her missing younger brother, or so she said," Lani recalled, struggling to piece together their meeting. "She knew I used to be a bounty hunter, and wanted me to find the boy, but there was clearly more to his disappearance than she let on..."
"Hmm... can you describe this woman?" the wizard asked.
Lani's eyebrows shot up as she remembered a singularly noteworthy detail.
"There was something deeply weird about her, now that I think of it... believe it or not, she could have easily passed for Queen Garnet's sister with a little makeup and some fancy clothes," she remarked, eliciting an intrigued stare from Kuja. "A distant cousin, perhaps?"
"Unlikely... the whole Raza-Alexandros bloodline is long gone, and the Summoner tribe is 99.9% extinct. Believe me, we made sure of that," the wizard replied matter-of-factly, sending a shiver down her spine.
"Well... maybe that 0.01% came back to bite me in the ass, because that bitch led me right into a trap," she retorted, massaging her temples. "... She told me she had last seen her brother at the Theatre District, so I started my investigation there. Someone must have been following me, because the moment I lowered my guard, I got bonked on the noggin. That's where my memory stops."
Kuja pensively rubbed his chin.
"So, there's a network of agents supplying test subjects to Bishop, and this... doppelgänger is part of it..." he muttered to himself, rubbing his chin. "... Or is Bishop supplying test subjects to someone else..?"
Lani opened her mouth to complain about Kuja's cryptic monologue, but an almost imperceptible sound interrupted her. Startled, she raised her foot only to discover a large, continuously growing crack in the ground, as if a silent earthquake was slowly tearing the Spirit World asunder.
"That must be Gizamaluke's magic..." Kuja remarked. "It appears my work here is done."
"Gizamaluke? The serpent god?!" Lani squawked, steering clear of a huge fracture that threatened to swallow their small campfire. "Please, don't tell me he's hunting us!"
"Listen close, Lani, for we have little time. That final remembrance of yours may prove instrumental in avenging your own death, and discovering the source of Treno's bootleg Terran weaponry," Kuja stated as reality itself crumbled around them. "Once you return to the living world, tell Crescent and my idiot brother about this Garnet lookalike. If they fail to listen, make sure you find this woman and force her to reveal her true colors. Pull the thread by any means necessary. The fate of your planet may depend on stopping whoever is tampering with Terra's legacy."
The floor beneath Lani's feet suddenly gave way as the cracks consumed everything, leaving her dangling from an unstable, protruding rock. Below her, the yawning void awaited. She yelped and desperately struggled to climb back up, but the crumbling wall prevented her from gaining purchase.
"What the fuck, Kuja, help me!" she yelled, but the wizard coldly turned around and left.
"Save your strength, woman. You're about to need it," he said calmly as the dimension collapsed, sending Lani screaming into the abyss.
...
...
...
April 2nd, 1820, Gaia One.
7:15 A.M.
"Did it work..?"
"Gods... her finger twitched just now..!"
"Do you think she'll attack, bro..?"
"Lord Gizamaluke claimed to trust her... but we'll be ready in case he's proven wrong..."
Lani suddenly opened her eyes, sat up and screamed in confused pain, scaring everyone in the room out of their wits.
"What the fu-?! Oowww, my brain!" she squawked, clutching her temples. Coming back from the grave was anything but pleasant, as she had just found out.
"Lani..! Is that you..?" Freya asked, almost in a whisper. "... Do you remember who I am?"
"Ugh... you kidding me, Frey-Frey? A mug like yours is hard to forget..." Lani groaned, convinced that she had just woken up from a wild night at the tavern, and that her conversation with Kuja in the Spirit World had been nothing but an alcohol-addled dream.
Freya's eyes welled up; the resurrection ritual had actually worked.
"Are you... crying..?" the mercenary asked, both baffled and concerned. She looked around, trying to assess her current situation; she was sitting on a comfy bed in what seemed to be a high-tech airship cabin (probably the captain's quarters judging by its size and amenities) surrounded by a monkey-tailed sibling duo, a tattooed crook who still held his sword's hilt in a terrified grip, and a very relieved Burmecian knight. " 'Sup Marcus, long time no see."
"Geez, Lani... you almost gave me a heart attack," he sighed, finally releasing his weapon.
"Aw, c'mon, you never had a nightmare before?" she retorted, and then she gulped when she realized who the oldest Genome of the pair actually was. "Uhh... Frey-Frey..? What is the prince consort of Alexandria doing here..?"
Worried about how Lani's laid back attitude was putting everyone dangerously at ease, Mikoto grabbed the dragoon's wrist as soon as she tried to approach the mercenary.
"Careful... we don't know if her implants are still operational..." Mikoto warned the knight, keeping her amplifying mask at the ready in case all hell broke loose.
"Implants? Oh, ho ho, no. These bad girls are 100% natural, kid. Thank you," Lani smugly retorted, thumping a fist against her mangled chestplate, still blissfully unaware of the grotesque machinery jutting out of her scalp. "Weird... I don't remember owning a suit of armor... wait, are those bullet holes?"
Freya, Zidane and Mikoto exchanged bewildered glances for a moment.
"Lani... what's the last thing you remember?" the dragoon asked.
After a short conversation with Lani, the group called an emergency meeting in the hallway, leaving the confused merc temporally confined in Mikoto's cabin.
"A second Garnet?!" Zidane hissed right after closing the door behind him, his eyes open so wide that they seemed about to pop right out of their sockets. "Man... just when I thought this year couldn't get any weirder..."
"Why would Bishop employ such a conspicuous agent..?" Freya mused, folding her arms.
"Maybe she's some kind of... uh... golem? Like Kuja's black mages?" Marcus ventured, trying to avoid bringing up Zidane and Mikoto's artificial origins.
"Speaking of him, I can't believe he actually found Lani in the Soul Cycle..!" the Genome king remarked, marvelling at the implications of her unlikely comeback.
"No kidding..." Freya begrudgingly concurred. "If Lord Gizamaluke's ordeal is anything to go by, he must have spent decades from his perspective scouring the Spirit World... for all his many, many faults, the man is strong-willed."
"... Do you think the Crystal will take him in, Miko?" Zidane asked.
"Hundreds, possibly even thousands of Terran souls have already reincarnated on Gaia, so it's safe to assume he will be fine," Mikoto offhandedly reassured him, checking on Lani through a porthole window. "Honestly, I'm much more concerned about this doppelgänger story... just how much Terran technology has Bishop garnered..? Does she intend to replace Garnet with a clone..?"
"That would be waaay too far-fetched, even for her, don't you think?" Zidane said, mostly trying to convince himself. "I mean, even if she was identical, she wouldn't fool people for long without Dag's personality or memories, right?"
"Yeah... it's unlikely that she intends to swap queens without us noticing. Too impractical. Still, we must find this twin and uncover her connection to Treno if we want to figure out what Bishop's endgame is..." the scientist concluded.
"What about Lani..?" Zidane asked in a worried tone. "Someone has to tell her about her... transformation..."
An awkward silence grew between the four companions.
"I'll do it," Freya volunteered, unfolding her arms. "I really hope she can handle it..."
7:30 A.M.
Lani's first reaction to the dragon knight's story was to stare blankly at her for a moment. After a few seconds of silent disbelief, she reached for the mind control device embedded in her head with a tremulous hand.
"W-What is this..?" she stuttered, horrified by the unnatural feel of steel beneath her fingertips. "A mirror... I need a mirror!" she barked, scrambling towards the cabin's toilet. In a blind panic, she nearly tore the door off its hinges as she barged into the cramped facility, only stopping when she finally found herself face to face with her mutilated reflection.
"... Frey-Frey... what did they do to me..?" she whimpered, utterly devastated. Gizamaluke had mended her wounds to the best of his abilities, but the mercenary's body and the bizarre alien machinery keeping it alive were so intimately intertwined that not even Reis knew how to untangle them without permanently damaging her brain.
On the verge of hyperventilation, Lani fumbled desperately with her armor's various seals and latches until the damaged breastplate decoupled itself and hit the floor loudly, revealing just how extensively Bishop's scientists had defiled her body with experimental magitek.
"No..." she choked on the word; grotesque tubes and wiring infested her flesh like synthetic maggots, and whatever actual skin she had left was nothing but a rugged tapestry of both old battle scars and fresh, surgical ones.
A heartrending wail echoed across the ship.
Zidane, Marcus and Mikoto immediately barged into the adjacent room, fearing for Freya's safety, but they found the knight sitting on the bathroom floor, tenderly holding a distraught, blubbering Lani.
"It's okay... let it all out..." the dragoon whispered in her ear, reassuring her friends at the same time with a subtle nod of her head.
Lani wasn't one to let other people see her weep, even if she had spent the last few years crying herself to sleep. However, realizing that any chance she had at a normal life had been utterly destroyed the moment she let Bishop capture her was simply too much to bear, so she let her tears flow unimpeded against Freya's blouse.
"How am I supposed to go on like this..? I'm a monster..." she stammered, trembling miserably in the knight's arms.
"Monster? Please, you're no monster..." the Burmecian spoke in a hushed voice, stroking what remained of the mercenary's hair. "The real monsters are the ones we're about to hunt."
8:40 A.M.
By the time the Gaia One and the Madeen had crossed the border and re-entered Alexandrian air space, the sun had already pierced through the morning fog, laying bare the lush beauty of the Mist Continent. A few lazy clouds crowned the Aerbs mountaintops, and from her vantage point at the edge of the airship's deck, Freya imagined they were islands in the sky.
"Wow... this is just like the first time we visited Chocobo's Paradise... remember that?" Zidane said out of the blue as he sat next to the knight. His sneaky ways refused to die out, she observed, for his silent footsteps presented a challenge even to her inhuman senses.
"You mean the time I nearly broke my neck when you fed Choco those nasty peppers? That should be considered animal abuse," the dragoon retorted, eliciting a hearty chuckle from her friend.
"Aw, c'mon Freya, I know you look a little weird, but I'd never call you an animal," the king countered, earning himself a punch on the shoulder. "Ow! That was one witness away from a diplomatic incident!"
Freya smirked viciously, much to Zidane's dismay.
"Diplomatic incident? Consider this a war declaration! C'mere, you little runt!" she exclaimed, pulling him into a surprise headlock.
"Too tight..! Urk..!" Zidane helplessly gurgled, barely managing to wriggle out of the Burmecian's iron grip. "Geez..! and I thought Baku played rough."
"Uh, sorry..! I'm still getting used to the Crest's power... are you okay..?" she asked, feeling quite stupid.
"I'll live, no thanks to you," he huffed dramatically, feigning indignation as he raked his fingers through his long, golden locks. "... Jokes aside, how are you holding up? You didn't look so hot when we returned from Cleyra."
The knight languidly leaned on the railing, too emotionally drained to cobble together an explanation. Zidane immediately caught on what she was going through, so he limited himself to gently rubbing her back, if only to let her know he was there for her. She smiled melancholically and rested her head on his shoulder; the whole situation reminded them of their very first shared misadventures, back when they were nothing but a pair of lost brats, looking for a place to call home.
A passing flock of Garudas briefly interrupted the silence as the ship approached the kingdom's capital.
"I've only been here for a few hours, and I already miss everyone..." Freya sighed, instinctively reaching for her mother's pendant. "My new responsibilities aren't the only things I'll have to adapt to..."
At first, the Genome found himself at a loss for words. He knew it wasn't the time for a hollow pep talk, but he desperately wanted to give his friend some peace of mind. She deserved it more than anyone else.
"... I know we won't be travelling together for much longer, but that doesn't mean you'll be alone," he finally declared, offering her one of his disarmingly corny smirks. "No matter what happens, I'll always have your back, Ratface."
Freya chuckled, closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, revelling in the sun's warmth.
"And I'll always have yours, monkey boy..." she promised.
Zidane grinned, satisfied, and thought, even if just for a moment, that everything was going to be all right.
Then he noticed they were being followed.
"The fuck..?" he uttered, squinting at the two incoming airships; they belonged to the Alexandrian air force, there was no doubt about it, but the interception felt a little too aggressive for a mere escort mission.
"Please tell me they are just the welcoming committee..." Freya half-joked, dreading yet another aerial confrontation.
"No... something's off... let's go back inside," the Genome answered.
...
Author's note:
I know six months is a long time, but even if Adult Life (TM) insists on interfering, I still intend to give this story the conclusion it deserves.
Thanks for putting up with my shitty publishing frequency, I really appreciate it :3