The floor dropped from beneath me and I suddenly couldn't see. Everything was… white? I felt blinded. The light could have ended and I wouldn't have known until my eyes adjusted to what was happening around me. Things were blurry, and it was like all gravity left me. I was floating, cold, overwhelmingly scared, I didn't even know if I were alone or if the others were here too. I wanted to call out to them but it just seemed so difficult to speak when my senses were being filled in unequal amounts. My sight was filled with a bright light that could not fade fast enough, my ears were almost ringing, but I couldn't feel anything but the cold pinching my cheeks and my clothes gently touching my body.

It was like a dream. In dreams, things were shaped and somehow I knew what they were, but a white screen is not what my dreams consist of. I felt my eyes starting to sting like tears were building up. I needed somebody.

It wasn't until I heard a gasp near me that I could feel sure that I was not alone. Taking a deep breath, blinking a few times, I slowly was able to see around me. It was dark, and I was definitely floating in an abyss. Something was above us, bells hovering over it and large, shining tendrils surrounding it. The fal'Cie! I couldn't get away, not in the middle of the air with nothing to grasp at. I tried to reach out to my sister a few feet away, who was questioning where we were. How can you keep your composure like this, sis? "Lightning!" I needed to be with her, I couldn't hold my fear in without her. Just breathe… try to breathe, it's okay. That's what Light would say, she'd tell you you're okay…

But in a flash, before I was given any time to react, those tendrils shot out, grabbing me by my arms, legs, torso, and binding me so I couldn't escape; it did so to the others, too. The grasp was so tight; it hurt as I attempted to struggle free.

What is it doing?

And within the next second, a final set of those tendrils went out for us again. A single tendril pierced me in my left shoulder, pain seared through it and I almost couldn't hear anything besides my yells, and those awful bells. It hurt, burned, like being branded with hot, red brass.

I hadn't even noticed when I was released, slipping deeping into the dark abyss, falling into sleep.

In this forced sleep was a dream- no, a vision- I felt like I was looking through frosted glass, colors and lights were blurred together like a faded watercolor-covered canvas. Fire-oranges and copper-reds, a multi-armed monstrous figure, and bubbly eruptions of lava flashed erratically. There was nothing to make sense of, other than a faint word that repeated over, over, and over:

Ragnarok.

The vision ended abruptly as the next word I heard was yelled, "Serah!"

In a jolt, I woke up to see Snow reaching to the sky with panicked eyes. He wasn't the only one I saw either, I saw Lightning nearby, putting a hand to her head. We were outside and it was cold.

As I slowly sat up and gathered my bearings, I kept hoping that everything we just went through was a weird dream, and that my real self was still just sleeping in bed in our home in Bodhum. I hoped that I could wake up soon, see Lightning and Serah downstairs in the kitchen, and I would just head off to school like any other morning. But, no, I knew better. It wasn't a dream. We were sitting on a very real, cold ground, there were three strangers aside from myself and Light and Snow, and Serah had just been turned into crystal before we came face to face with that fal'Cie.

We were surrounded by blue crystal- waves? Crystallized waves? I spotted the Vestige out in the distance where it pierced the ground.

"Is this… for real?" Seemed like I was already ahead of Snow. Even if I didn't want to believe it, I knew it was all true.

The few of us started getting to our feet and walking around, examining the area. Part of me wanted to explore, but I knew better than to get lost and separated from the pack.

"This must be, uh," the older man spoke up, "Lake Bresha?" Wait, really? I looked around as he kept questioning, "I guess we fell from up there, the Vestige, and the lake turned to crystal?"

It was a long fall, and far out, too. "How did we survive?" I mostly mumbled my question while walking up next to Lightning, who shrugged, just as confused as I was.

"Help me out here!" He was still trying to get answers. "I mean, did the fal'Cie do this? How in the world did we end up here?" I wish I knew, too, man. He tried to ask Light, but she just turned away coldly, not knowing either.

Pigtails fell to her knees, seemingly in disbelief. "We're alive.. How?"

"Serah!" Snow exclaimed and I jumped with a start. "No one survives a fall from that high, not without a miracle. Serah saved us!"

Light turned to him. "Serah?" Bringing up our sister didn't exactly make Lightning happy.

I just stepped back, knowing if I tried to cool her off she would lose it further.

"Listen." Lightning scowled. "It's all your fault she got-"

The sound of the ground cracking behind me made me whip around- to be face-to-face with a towering Cie'th.

"Whoa!" I yelled in shock, stumbling, and Lightning was quick to grab my shoulder and pull me away. The older guy was yelling, "hey, hey, hey!" repeatedly, and Snow rushed to shove Light and me away from the danger. Snow slammed his fist into the monster, and his hand… it… glowed? Ice surrounded his hand, and when it collided with the chest of the Cie'th, the ice shattered. Somehow the Cie'th was thrown back, with strength I had never known Snow to be capable of.

Snow took his hand back. "What did I… just do?"

"You used magic!" Out of nowhere, the boy stood up, announcing that we were l'Cie. "The fal'Cie cursed us!"

I couldn't even let myself try to understand what he was telling us as more Cie'th piled in, circling us, attracted by all of the noise we were making.

We're WHAT now?

We had to fight before we could talk about it. I equipped my gauntlets as the others readied themselves, and proceeded to fight the enemies. There were so many, we had to fight each one on one until they lessened. Waves and blasts of different magic (yes, magic) flew in the corner of my eye.

Can I do that? I don't think I even know how. I decided to try it. I took a step back to gain some distance from the one I was fighting, wriggled my fingers a bit, and ran up to slash at it. My hand intensely warmed up, heating the metal in my gauntlets, and suddenly I ripped fire through the chest of the Cie'th. "I- wha- just like that?" I became breathless in awe as the monster fell to the ground.

But apparently, I didn't know how to cool the magic off, and my gauntlet started to burn my hand. I yelped, throwing the gauntlet off. The rest of the Cie'th were picked off around me, and there were no more in sight. Which was good, considering I couldn't use one of my weapons for a moment. "Ouch…"

Eventually, each Cie'th was picked off, laying still on the ground. We all sort of became quiet, in the realization of what happened to us.

"So we really are l'Cie."

"Looks like it."

I had already proven it to myself, during the fight, but I wanted to check exactly where a brand would be. It couldn't have been placed anywhere more obvious than that of my shoulder, my left one. Exactly where the vestige fal'Cie hit me. Yet another Farron, branded. Did it get Lightning too? I looked over to her. "Sis?" She didn't even look at me but nodded. After we confirmed that we were all branded, I sighed. "It really got all of us, huh." I was just in such disbelief over this.

The younger kid fell over, to his knees, I thought he was going to break down. "Why me?" I was just sixteen, almost seventeen, but the boy? He had to be even younger than me. Why is it even possible for kids to be turned into this? But his sadness diminished into anger quickly as he snapped his head up to look at Lightning. "I don't even know you! But you had to go and attack that thing?" Next he looked at Snow. "Just leave me alone!" He just started mumbling, something about putting fault onto someone, maybe onto Snow? I wouldn't say anyone, in particular, deserved to be straight up blamed for the predicament we were in, besides the fal'Cie.

The boy got up to his feet and almost charged at Snow. "All of this is yours and Serah's fault!"

I stared at him. "Excuse you?"

Oh, it made Snow furious. "Watch it!" He stood tall, almost aggressive, and took a step towards the silver-headed boy. He fell back, crawling away from Snow, but ended up bumping into Lightning's feet. I didn't see the look she gave him, but it was enough to make him cower away in fear.

I bit back a bitter remark and folded my arms, stepping away and taking a deep breath. It's not like he knew Serah, he just picked her name up from us mentioning her, he was just angry that he got put in the situation. Maybe he shouldn't have followed Snow, then. How do they even know each other? I let out a controlled sigh. He's scared. He didn't mean it. Don't get upset.

Pigtails had managed to cheer him up enough to get up and follow her as she started walking away, wanting to explore the area. The older man was following behind, and Snow wasn't too far back. Lightning, however, stayed put. She didn't face the group, didn't even make a sound.

She didn't have to say anything for me to know that she was really bothered by what just happened.

"I think… we should go too. With them." I decided to speak up. "Maybe we could find a way out of this, together?" She didn't budge. I could see anger, irritation, although I didn't think I saw fear. No, I scratched that off of the list. Although, how could she not be scared? Was she hiding it? Or was she just so mad that anything else couldn't even break through?

"Sis, you know we have to find a way to fix this, and we have to find Serah again. She can't be too far." That still didn't sway her. "Please?"

Nothing.

"I need…" I glanced away, against admitting it. I didn't want to look weak in front of the strongest person I knew. "I don't want to go alone, Light."

Then she glanced down at me. Please be considering it. "They'll be slow."

"I'm sure you'd speed them up." She frowned and my hopes dropped. "Maybe taking our time right now is a good thing. Rushing into a solution isn't always the best idea." I swallowed. "I know you're fast, you're smart, and, yeah, you'd probably find something all by yourself; but, that's exactly what we need!"

Lightning folded her arms. "... Right." Well… what's she thinking now? I noticed she gave my branded shoulder a glance, then she reached up, hesitant, before patting it, and then walked into the direction where the rest of the group went.

I let myself smile and followed along. "Besides, do you really trust Snow to lead those few?" I think I heard some form of a disgusted grumble, as she probably imagined how that could go downhill.

My mind was still racing with thoughts about it all: getting caught up in the Purge, finding Serah, losing Serah, coming in contact with a fal'Cie, becoming l'Cie. Then we ended up in (on?) Lake Bresha, but it's crystallized and merged with the now-in-ruin Hanging Edge. Each one of us reacted differently to this, almost like the stages of grief.

The boy was terrified. He switched between outbursts of blaming everyone, asking why he was chosen for this, then turning into himself and going completely silent. He had been pale, he looked tired, but his eyes were wide.

Then Pigtails was the opposite side of the spectrum. I could tell that she took it seriously, but still, she kept a smile on her face and a pep in her step. She tried to be a source of security and comfort for the boy, who gladly clung to her. They didn't really look alike, but I did wonder if they were brother and sister, or good friends, or something.

The older man, with the chocobo chick as a companion, seemed to slowly be accepting it all. Snow was kinda like that too, being an optimist, saying, "we'll defeat this Focus," and saying that Serah was the miracle that saved us all. I couldn't tell if it was some kind of hysteria on his part or what, Snow would usually be a bit more realistic about something so drastic. Maybe it was just his way of coping.

Lightning… I don't think it helped who our company was. Three strangers, two of which are kids and the other is much older than us. And she admitted that she thought they're just slow. There's also Snow, who she's been aggressive towards ever since he stepped foot into our house when we met him. Then I was there, and I can't really tell what she thinks about me being involved. She could've just been upset that I had to get stuck in it, or she might've even thought that I was also slowing her down too. I was grateful that she was still talking to me, since she barely said a word to the others. I know she wouldn't shove me away- but ever since she had me enter the Purge, I just didn't know what to feel.

We were definitely an odd bunch, picked to be 'warriors' by a fal'Cie. But, maybe we'd make it work?

"We're all team Pulse now."

I grimaced. "Oh, don't say it like that." We're hardly a 'team' anyway.

We had been venturing for a, defeated a few lingering Cie'th and investigated the fresh ruins of the Purge. Nothing was helping us get anywhere, we were just walking aimlessly. But, I just felt like we were getting somewhere, even if I didn't know where that was. Intuition, I guess? Is that a perk of being a l'Cie? It could very well just be my tiredness, crying to me that we're doing fine.

Lightning walked ahead, being line-leader, and not reacting to the comments made by the others. I mean, there's not much to say honestly, everything was quite obvious, they were just reacting to the problem at hand. "Trust the soldier to keep her cool through this mess." Well someone has to, right? There might be something going on in her head, but if no one else is going to keep a clear mind in case there's enemies, then she will.

But, she did bring up a good point after stopping for a moment. "Okay, if we don't know our Focus, then how do we complete it?"

I shrugged lightly. "Serah said something about Cocoon, but what if the fal'Cie decided against her? Then what?"

"I think," Pigtails started, "I saw it." Lightning questioned her, but the girl seemed to not understand it herself.

Chocobo-guy chimed in, "that is how a Focus comes down, people. That fal'Cie? It doesn't spell it out, with clear-cut instructions." He shook his head as he spoke. "No, all you get is a hazy glimpse." A hazy glimpse, huh? He did seem to really understand how a Focus was given, somehow, and Lightning and Snow even looked at him suspiciously for the way he explained it. "Well, that's what they say. You know, legends and all!" He held up his hands defensively, turning away and nodding to agree with himself, mumbling about the legends. I mentally theorized that maybe he's a historian and just studies that stuff a lot, but then pushed it aside to think about the Focus.

"You," Lightning went over to the younger boy, "did you see anything?" He was a bit taken aback, probably because she was actually talking to him. He started to describe that, while his memory of it is "all kind of foggy", he saw something that must have been large, towering even.

Uh, wait, what?

"W-Wait a minute, hold on now!" The other guy walked over again. "Did we all have the same dream?" The bells rang in my memory as a response to what he said, a quick flash of the vision, and the relentless echo of the name,

"Ragnarok."

We all talked about the different pieces of what we saw, and they connected together to play out as the same exact vision. "So, we all saw the same dream, heard the same voice." The youngest boy questioned if it was really our Focus, but I couldn't think of what else it would be. It kinda had to be.

"How are we supposed to know what to do from that?" He even sounded annoyed about it. It really was, it was an annoyance, almost like when there's a word you just can't remember but it's right there on the tip of your tongue? That feeling was what I had when wondering what that vision was telling us to do, what did fire and a monster and flashy lights mean? What is 'Ragnarok'?'

Now it was Pigtails' turn to come forth again. "The dream's the only hint the fal'Cie gives us, that's the tricky part. It's our job to figure out what to do with it!" Well, can I tell our boss to give me a promotion then? This isn't a job, it's a curse.

"Okay okay, we're Pulse l'Cie, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Enemies of Cocoon!"

"Go on?"

"Does that mean that our Focus is- I mean, are we supposed to-" Snow interrupted the man with the words "save her". We looked at him a bit puzzled, who is he talking about?

He held up a fist. "Our Focus is to protect Cocoon." Now that's an oxymoron, protect Cocoon as Pulse l'Cie? "Serah told us, let's do it! We're all in this together." I started to think that Snow was just looking for any hope at this point, sadly. "I'm gonna look for Serah, she oughta be nearby…" He started running before he even got to finish his statement.

"I'll come too, wait!"

"Geez, that boy can't stay still!" The strangers ran to catch up with Snow, and I noticed that again Lightning didn't follow. I didn't want to pester, and maybe she would end up following anyways, so I just walked along as well. I didn't run, I didn't exactly feel up to it, but I did want to find Serah as well.

As we ventured forth, things became even harder for us as we stumbled upon more and more hoards of Cie'th. There were large Cie'th, flying Cie'th, ones that used magic that we couldn't use. We were able to defeat them, but it wasn't easy, and we were growing fatigued. We decided on resting at the first safe clearing when we found it, and thankfully that wasn't too long after making the decision. My legs grew sore, and I rested against a chunk of metal in the clearing. Even Lightning sat next to me, which helped ease some bad nerves I didn't even know I had at the time. She wanted to take a look at my brand, since it was easier to look at mine where it was. The little bit of attention from my sister was nice. The others rested too, chatting a little bit. We needed a small moment like this, after everything. It was quiet, still, no Cie'th nearby.

We could just take a few minutes to sit and think.

Then, Snow abruptly stood up to exclaim, "We fight it! Ragnarok!" I had half a mind to shush him and tell him to continue later, but might as well let him get it out now. "That's the reason we're l'Cie, to stop it—to keep Cocoon safe!" When the older man demanded a reason, Snow replied with, "Serah". Blunt, simple, to the point, but not with any real sense to it.

I sighed. "Snow…"

"No no, just hear me out here. She said to protect Cocoon, hmm? And then- she turned to crystal. That's the proof right there. She completed her Focus!" Snow really seemed to have believed this too. "That means ours is to save Cocoon. Her fal'Cie was the same as ours, so our Focus has got to be the same." Well, yeah, now I guess that reasoning makes sense, but I just couldn't shake that it could be something different. The fal'Cie was who planned it, and what if it decided to change the whole thing after Serah turned to crystal? But, I couldn't bring myself to say it outloud, I knew how disappointed Snow would be if I too disagreed with him, like how Lightning has. Hearing his fiancée's sisters not hear him out wouldn't mix well with what'd happened already. "We were chosen to be guardians, chosen to defeat Ragnarok! It makes sense-"

"Oh, the hell it does!" It didn't seem that the chocobo guy had the same thinking I had. "You're grasping at straws, son! We just got recruited by the fal'Cie, a Pulse fal'Cie. It's Cocoon's enemy!" He finished with a huff. "If I were a bettin' man… I'd put us on the other side."

Snow didn't like that. "So, what, Serah's an enemy too? I don't buy that! Sis," he walked over to Lightning, "we have the power to save this if we just work together on carrying out our Focus—" He was stopped by a gunblade at his throat. What is Lightning doing?

"Our Focus? The fal'Cie took Serah from us, and now you want to help it?" It was dangerous to try to stop her, she had a blade at Snow. "Whose side are you even on?"

I was going to try to say something, to pacify her, until-

"Freeze!"

We snapped back to be encountered by a swarm of soldiers, walling us in on all sides. "Put your hands behind your heads!" How did they get here!? I didn't want anyone to get hurt, so I followed orders, the others did the same. Except Lightning. She kept her composure for a moment, but seemed to give in, dropping her weapon and putting her hands back too. One of the soldiers approached her, "you fall off the Purge train?"

I'm pretty sure I saw a roll of the eye from Lightning, making me have to hold back a snicker. "Maybe." Her hint of sass almost made me forget about the loaded guns aimed at us, so I just bit my lip and stood straight, just reminding myself that we could possibly be stronger than them. We have enhanced abilities, we have magic. But I didn't want to lead that on, making sure I was turned enough to have my shoulder out of their line of sight.

The main soldier, I assume would be the general of the group, was not pleased with Lightning's retort. "Are you talking back to me? Ah?" He even shoved his gun into her face, which made me lose the amusement and replace it with anger. Does he not know better?

"Nice gun."

In a split second, Lightning had swiftly blazed through the soldiers on our right side, taking them out with ease, allowing us to get rid of the rest. I wondered what they thought, as we fought them, when they saw our magic. Sure, we were really just amateurs at it, but finally we were able to outmatch those PSICOM soldiers. The Guardian Corps weren't vicious, cruel, unfair. They didn't experiment to create war monsters like the hounds and behemoths. I knew that we were hurting real people… but I just kept telling myself that they had done worse to a mass number of innocent citizens, just from Bodhum alone.

Once all of the soldiers were out, the older man looked at one. "I thought they'd be tougher than that. PSICOM, right? You know, cream-of-the-crop."

"Yeah, but PSICOM'S an anti-Pulse task force." Snow brushed off his coat. "Haven't had to fight a war for centuries, just a bunch of rookies swinging around overpriced toys."

Chocobo-guy nodded. "Alright, so, from what you're telling me, a regular ol' soldier's got more training than special forces." He wasn't wrong either, Lightning would come home most days completely beat when she first started training with the Corps. When Serah and I would go visit her, we would have to pass the training base for PSICOM, and- well- let's just say that they let their expensive equipment do all the work.

"Well, since Cocoon's safety was never threatened by Pulse since the war, PSICOM hasn't been busy until the fal'Cie was discovered." I decided to kneel down, just felt like getting a closer look at the armor on these guys. "Just been bored, spending their paychecks on useless gear and equipment while the Corps works their asses off with real crime." I was just disappointed with the people that are supposed to protect us.

Snow shrugged. "Whether they're tough or not, it's nothing for us l'Cie to be afraid of!"

I cringed, and Lightning wasn't pleased either. "Cut the crap- their grunts may be green, but PSICOM's elites are nothing but cold-blooded beasts." She stepped closer to me, nudging the soldier on the ground with her boot. "They hit the field and it's game-over." There may not be many, but it's true, PSICOM's regulars were just pawns. The real deal were their generals and elites, armed to the teeth with deadly weapons that we might not have been prepared for. I just didn't want to say it, and make everyone feel worse. But, it's probably better that Lightning got that out of the way as we all did need that reminder. We can't forget that they almost made the Purge a success, if it weren't for the rebels and fighters… the ones that sacrificed themselves to make sure we weren't sent to Pulse… yet here we are, still made into its l'Cie anyways—

"Then let's run away! Bye-bye!" The quick patter of Pigtails skipping away brought me out of my thoughts. The older man tried to get the girl to stop running, but it didn't really work out, and his little chocobo chick popped out. He just talked to it as he followed along the path, with the boy behind him, and Snow too. I took a deep inhale as I ran a hand through my curls, and started to jog ahead, Lightning's boots clicked slowly behind me.

I just smiled a little, glancing back at her. "For someone so worried about being slowed down, you sure aren't in a hurry, huh?" And guess what, I even managed to get her to brighten up a little. Sure, it wouldn't last, but in the moment, it was nice to see.