Fic: Call Me Lightning, Chapter 1/10 "Butterfly"

[metacog]

Fan Fiction

Title: Call Me Lightning
Author: S. R. Kabala (aka. metacog )
Section: "Butterfly" Chapter 1/10
Draft: First (to be revised upon completion of final chapter)
Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Square-Enix owns Final Fantasy XIII. The author owns whatever is here that they don't.

Summary: Anima wakes Fang early to save Claire Farron from an outbreak of Grave Fever.

 

---

 

Call Me Lightning

 

Chapter 1:

Butterfly

 

“Claire!”

The teen hopped from rock to rock across a mumbling brook, her hiking shoes flipping water against her calves with each step. “Why cant' we just go swimming?” she argued. Early autumn leaves crunched underfoot as Claire Farron landed on the bank and turned to face the whining girl.

“I want to be a princess.” Serah followed her sister, arms out to balance on the air. “That makes you one, too.” The pink-haired girl bit her lip in concentration and jumped to a wide, white stone, a fragment of the mighty dome that shielded their small country from the savage planet beyond. Fallen shards great and small lay scattered throughout Monument Park and the woodlands that grew below an open cleft in their false sky. Nameless headstones of a safer, more innocent age.

A light branch wrestled against its neighbors as Claire pushed it aside, heading away from the brook with a frown. She was getting too old for silly fantasies. But, if Serah told Mom and Dad she was 'mean to her again' they'd ground her and suspend her Mage War account. They always believed the younger girl. As if she were too sweet to lie. Not that it would be a lie... Claire sighed and glanced over her shoulder as she heard the same branch rustling behind her.

“Fine. But, I'm not one of those do-nothing princesses who gets rescued.”

“Me either!” Serah's blue eyes sparked with victory and indignation as she skipped to the taller girl's side. “We have to save our kingdom from the monsters.”

“What monsters?” The most dangerous thing in these woods was the look in Mom's eyes when Dad shuffled back to camp the day before and confessed dropping the camera in the lake.

Serah's forehead pinched for a second in thought. “The... Ragnarok the Destroyer!”

The older girl's heart thudded suddenly as a hulking, black figure loomed in her memory. “From the shrine?” She swallowed against a shiver rising in her chest.

Serah nodded earnestly. “That was him turned to stone, but he got free!”

A host of tactics swirled to the front of Claire's mind. The native beast Ragnarok had escaped after his dome-cracking assault destroyed the city of Bresha-Sura and started the War of Transgression five hundred years ago. Modern weapons could surely defeat him. “I'll draw a map so we can find his base. Does he have troops? Do we? And weapons?”

“No, it's just him,” the younger girl huffed. “He's right over that hill.”

“Just him? That's boring.” Maybe a few jet-packed Psicom Arials and a Spirit Legion...

“No, maps are boring.” Serah grabbed her arm suddenly. “Look out!” She yanked Claire down onto the damp leaves and ferns of the forest floor, the waning scent of last night's rain rising to greet them. “He cast Quake. We have to hurry before he cracks the shell!”

The teen crouched, brushing the dirt from her knee, and pulled her sister close. Claire's eyes flashed through the trees. “Quiet,” she whispered. “He'll hear us.”

“How will we fight him?” Serah's eyes widened in excitement.

“I'll use my...” Spotting an old fallen tree, Claire jogged over and snapped off a barren limb. “--my sword Masamune, and you--”

“I have magic!” Serah piped, grinning like an imp.

“Okay.” Not a bad team. Claire broke the last few twigs off her new sword. If I sneak up...

“Great Thunder!” Serah yelled, gesturing the hand sign to cast her spell. She dashed over the hill in a blur of pale arms and legs.

“It's called 'Thund-aga.' Don't charge--you're a mage!” Claire rushed after her. “Cast Protect! And Float.” Claire hurdled a wide root at the crest of the hill and darted to flank the young oak Serah was waving imaginary spells at.

The teen swung her makeshift weapon sharply against the lowest branch, and it bounced off with a jarring clack. She dove into a side roll, dodging an invisible counter slash, and shot up into a quick feint and retreat. Maybe this wasn't such a bad game. It was a chance to practice her ojindo. There was a move the Thieves used in Mage War. The animation was impossible without a military AMP injection, but if she just did a single thrust-flip...

Claire coiled her legs for a heartbeat and sprang towards the enemy tree. In four swift strides she leapt and tilted to plant a fifth step high on the trunk, stabbing her sylvan blade against it to launch into a back flip. A bolt of fear struck her chest as she tucked her legs into the slowed rotation. Her feet landed well behind her torso and she took a lurching step forward to catch herself heavily against the oak. That was close. Maybe if I put less into the thrust...

“I know his weakness, Claire!”

Shaking slightly from her headfirst dive towards the tree, the teen pushed up onto her feet and looked at her sister. The spritely girl held a red apple aloft in one hand. Maker, she brought an apple as a snack voluntarily. “Put his heart back, and he'll stop.”

Serah tossed the apple, and Claire snatched it from the air with her free hand, wincing at the childish idea. 'Put his heart back.' What a fairy tale. At least this way I don't have to eat it. She laid her wood Masamune down and looked at the branches above, plotting her climb. A warrior's grin spread across her face as she zipped the apple into the small hip pack at her back.

“Cover me.”

Serah nodded and motioned her arms in a black magic sign. “Fire-aga!”

Claire hooked both hands on the rough bark of a low branch and swung herself up, carefully pivoting to reach for the next limb. She climbed halfway up and noticed a small nest that had been hidden from the ground. Golden leaves rustled in the breeze around her as she fetched the apple from its snug fit in her pouch. She almost had it when it popped free, and she swiped at the air as it tumbled from her fingertips. A sudden gust yanked the limb she was holding from her other hand, and in the split second before free fall, Claire channeled a spike of fear into a leap for the nearest branch.

Bark tore at her hands as she gripped it tightly and swung down, too heavy for the light limb. She flailed her legs around another branch as the first cracked and snapped from the trunk.

“Claire!”

Clutching the second branch from below, the teen took a shuddering breath. “I'm all right,” she said, hating the quiver that snuck into her voice. She took a few deep breaths and gingerly made her way down, dropping onto unsteady legs beside a waiting Serah.

The younger girl instantly reached for the teen's scratched arms. “Are you hurt?” Her crystal eyes shone with concern.

Claire shot a glare at her oak nemesis. “I'm fine. I just need Cure.” Spotting the apple only a step away, she scooped it up and brushed the flakes of dirt off.

“Cure,” Serah cast, keeping her hands stretched out for a melodramatic second. “Quick! He's getting away.”

“Away? He's a tree.” A tree with an apple on its plate.

“He's getting away!”

Sighing in defeat, Claire snatched up her Masamune. “Give me Haste!” She could master the oak later when her sister wouldn't be there to meddle. “We'll save Bresha-Sura!”

“Haste-aga! We'll save them!”

The girls chased Ragnarok over the rise, skidding down the steep incline towards the lake shore. Claire jammed a heel in to steer her descent past a young maple and catch herself as the forest thinned. Her legs slung forward, twisting her around the tree like a pole before she settled them against a sprawling root. Serah lagged behind at a far more controlled pace.

The teen stilled her breath and focused on a medley of voices drifting from the beach a half-pitch away. She'd noticed movement near a large relic of their fractured dome planted in the khaki sands. A distant flicker of cloth and skin as she slid. A group of children or young teens was arguing. She was still too far to make out the words.

Carefully, she descended the hill, indulging her instinct to scout a curiosity. Serah grasped her arm when she caught up. “Do you see that?” the girl stage-whispered.

“Not very well.” Claire slowed as the ground leveled out.

“They look see-through.”

“It's just a glare off the lake.” In the maw of the white half-shell, a handful of boys were playing some game. It was hard to catch sight of their faces against the backdrop of sunlit waves. “Maybe they'll want to swim.” And hopefully, race.

“They look like ghosts!”

Claire grimaced. Her sister's fear of the 'haunted' forest was annoying enough when she was keeping her up with her all-night worries. Every night beetle that caromed off their tent was the finger tap of an angry wraith.

“They're just kids.” The teen scowled. “Stay here if you're so scared.”

Claire dropped her childish 'sword' and slipped the bruised apple back into her hip pouch. Serah frowned at her back as she crept close enough to eavesdrop. The side of the cupped fragment shielded her approach.

She dove behind a moonberry briar at the shore's edge as two of the boys chased another pair into the open. A fifth followed calmly, cradling a tattered book like a baby in his left arm. Their pale skin looked as though it hadn't seen the sun once all summer.

“The manor gate's stay locked until I am answered,” the bookboy announced stifly. It sounded awkward enough to be a line from an old play, just not one she recognized. Claire didn't make a habit of paying attention in drama class. There was a window right beside her desk in that room. Probably some stuffy upper-class brats. Outside for the first time all year, and all they do is play theater. I could outrace them easy.

“What has killed Our Lady Lindzei, the sword or the hand?” he went on. He was a half-head taller than the others who had turned to face him.

“Neither, sir, but the mind that swung the hand that held the sword.” The speaker puffed his chest out like a robin, opening his unbuttoned vest further over his white t-shirt.

Claire gently pushed a needle-thorned branch aside to see all five boys at once.

“An acquital in full,” a towheaded boy crowed, “for my brother has no mind.”

“Hey!” A shorter, freckled version of the Crow glowered at him.

“Silence,” he muttered to his brother. Suddenly, the two vested boys nabbed the Crow by his arms. “What offense is this?”

“You confess,” the Robin replied, pulling him forward. “The sky fell by your command.”

“Off with his hands!” the second vested boy cried and shoved the Crow forward. The older blond stumbled to his knees in the turf.

“Here now, let's not be hasty,” the Crow stammered to the bookboy.

Steel fingers seized Clair's shirt at the nape and jerked the girl to her feet. The actors turned to face her coldly. For a heartbeat, she thought her captor was Serah until she realized she had lost sight of Freckles. “It was her, bookkeeper!” Damn, the kid's strong.

He released her just as she twisted to start a release move, but with a quick step she caught her balance.

“Aha!” The Crow pointed in accusation.

“Now that makes sense,” the Robin deadpanned. Or is he serious?

“I don't even know what you're talking about.” Claire rubbed her throat and glared at little Freckles. She caught a glimpse of the waves through his face. Or was it a trick of the light? A snake of dread uncoiled and twitched in her stomach. If Serah was right...no, it's impossible.

“Guiltier words were never spoken,” said the Crow as he jumped to his feet and hopped over with the other three.

The Bookkeeper considered her across the bridge of his thin nose. “Did anyone see her there?”

“No,” the Robin answered.

“So it must have been her,” the keeper concluded, opening his book and flipping casually to a page near the back.

“What?” This is more a carnival than a play. Claire squeezed her hand into a fist to stop herself from glancing back to check on Serah. Maybe if she played along...

“Simple logic, girl.” He snapped the book shut. “The killer was never seen, and since I've never seen you before, it must've been you.”

The vested boys grabbed her with hands like frosted iron and hauled her out onto the beach.

“Throw her in the fire!” the zealous, vested boy hollered. They picked her up like she weighed no more than her clothes, and the snake in her gut struck, shooting adrenaline through her veins.

“Wait! I--I know who it really was,” she argued. The vests stopped, holding her aloft, and she looked sideways at a skeptical Bookkeeper. If she could just get back on her feet, she could run for it.

“How would you know?” he asked.

“Because...I didn't see them either?”

His brown eyes narrowed. “Who?” he asked darkly.

“Herself!” the Crow chirped.

“Quiet.” The keeper's eyes never waivered.

“Uh, simple logic--”

“The very best kind,” Robin cut in.

“Too true,” the Crow agreed.

“Well?” The keeper was losing his patience.

“I wasn't seen because I was kneeling to grab a coin that...that he--” she pointed at Freckles “--dropped when he snuck up on me because...” Think, Claire. What doesn't make sense? “He sneezed when a butterfly brushed past his nose.”

Freckles went from pale to ashen. “A butterfly?”

“You were kneeling to take the coin he dropped when he sneezed after he found you?” The bookkeeper had the unflinching stare of a Psicom interrogator on a sixteen-year-old face.

Claire squirmed, but her captors held firm. “Yes?”

“Did I sneeze?” Freckles asked.

“I'm afraid I didn't hear it, brother.” The Crow patted his shoulder to console him.

“I thought I'd remember.” Freckles bit his lip as he frowned.

The Bookkeeper looked at the brothers before casting his eyes around the beach. “Catch the butterfly!” he boomed.

“It killed Lindzei!” the Zealot cried as the vested boys set her down in a heap and ran off down the beach.

“You are answered, bookkeeper. Let us home,” the Crow said, his hand still resting on Freckles's shoulder. The young one looked at Claire earnestly, apologizing with his eyes.

“Yes, at once.” The keeper straigtened his back and pulled a twig from his pocket. He turnned it in an invisible keyhole and pretended to push open a heavy door.

Claire watched, sitting gracelessly on the sand, as the brothers ran through the imaginary portal and into the lake. Pale limbs churned through the sparkling water of Lake Bresha. The Crow tackled his junior, dunking them both. They bobbed to the surface and laughed while sweeping ribbons of water at each other.

A shadow fell over the girl, and she looked up into the keeper's unblinking eyes, black when untouched by the sun. He flickered and a sudden shaft of light blinded her. Had he even moved?

Claire's heart kickstarted, and she scrambled to her feet, sprinting into the brush and leaping up the hill. Where was Serah? She stopped and swept her eyes around frantically. “Serah!”

“Claire?”

Relief washed through the teen as she spun towards the familiar baritone. “Dad!”

She rushed into his arms as he hurried towards her between the trees. He hugged her against his chest, and she could hear his strong heart pounding as he took a deep breath.

“Serah said some boys grabbed you.” His voice was edged with a dangerous glint she'd never heard before.

“They were crazy.” She sqeezed her eyes shut and let his arms hold her up. “But, they didn't hurt me. It wasn't what you think.”

He squeezed her tightly and then loosened his embrace. “Let's get you back to camp.” He stepped back but kept his arm around her shoulders. His smile didn't reach his eyes.

She leaned against him on the walk back, arms and legs shaking faintly like the leaves in the breeze above. The forest seemed eerily quiet after so much tumult. Claire focused on the brittle, crunching sound of Dad's heavy footfalls and on her breathing, deep cleansing zephyrs. Her walk was sturdy once more when Mom and Serah turned at their approached.

Dad stepped aside as Mom immediately enveloped her, and Claire leaned into the shorter woman, feeling safe at last. “Are you hurt?” she asked, running her hands up and down the teen's back. Serah hovered behind, and Claire gave her a weak, reassuring smile.

“I'm fine...tired.” Bone tired... Claire turned and pulled her shirt tail up to wipe her forehead when Mom let go. Her pulse had slowed, but she was still sweating.

“The Corps?” Dad asked in a dark voice behind her.

“I called them. They're sending an officer to check it now.” Mom brushed a hand across the teen's forehead when she turned back, looking her up and down for any bruise or injury and noticing her scratched hands with a frown.

“I'll just go make sure,” Dad growled.

“Marq, they're on their way. She'll feel safer if you stay.” He froze in midstep and slowly pivoted back, glaring into the distance as he reigned in his need to settle things personally.

Claire blinked as the burning colors of the forest blurred into flames for a moment. I must be crashing off the adrenaline.

Serah pushed a plaid blanket into her arms. When had she disappeared? “You're shivering,” her sister murmured.

Claire just stood there without a thought to unfold it, and Mom gently pulled it from her hands, opening the blanket to wrap the teen in a flannel hug. “Thank you, Serah,” Mom said for her.

A glance passed between her parents, and Dad turned to Serah, guiding her away with a hand on her back. “She'll be fine, honey. It's normal to feel cold after you get real scared.”

Mom steered Claire to the girls' tent as Dad continued to reassure their littlest one. “I'm not cold,” the teen mumbled. She sank heavily to her knees and laid down on her bedroll without a thought for the midday hour.

The elder Farron knelt beside her and pulled her up like a bag of limp bones until she was sitting again. “Just rest until the officer gets here. I think you need to stay awake, though, sweetheart.” Mom kissed her forehead and frowned, wiping a bead of cool sweat away with her thumb. Through slowing blinks, Claire saw open concern etched on the faintly wrinkled features. Tender hands unbuckled her hip pouch to set it aside and closed the blanket around the girl.

Claire watched, hypnotized, as the red apple somersaulted from her upturned pack.

“The monster's heart... I forgot I had it...”

*****

Whispering strokes like water greeting a shore lulled her gently awake. Wrapped in a blanket of darkness, she didn't open her eyes. Who would? Her thoughts, raw and felt, were unshrouded by words. Serenity bathed her spirit in warmth like morning sunlight.

Idly, she noticed she wasn't breathing and felt no need to. The inverse of the dream where she could breathe underwater. As her body hovered in time, she marveled at this life without breath.

Until her heart beat.

An ocean of blood crashed into every cell. And she remembered.

The screams. A chorus of death hundreds of thousands strong; one drowned and another crushed took nothing from the whole. Nothing until one and one and one was a hundred, five hundred thousand, and the wail of a dying city faltered and failed.

Fang braced for a futile flail of logic as her thoughts slipped on the ice within her mind. That mental tundra had shielded her like a faithful sentinel until the day of her revenge. When maelstrom of rage consumed and betrayed her.

She was falling inside but the ground never came.

A sudden gulp of wintery air rushed through parched lips to fill her chest, and her body twitched with its own memory. He was there. His sword! Fang strained helplessly to lift her spear with paralyzed arms. Her emerald eyes opened to a burning blue mist, and her heart sank as it hammered away.

She blinked against the shrinking fog of crystal stasis. Gravity clutched her, and she staggered back on leaden legs. The huntress crashed to the floor, long midnight locks falling around her face. Her spear clanged against the white plating to echo like a cry through the vaulted chamber. Metal beams and ribs wove in a haphazard tangle above her. A chaotic ascent of steel. This was not where she was. Not where she had been.

Her body stung as though she had slept in a needle stack. She sat up with a faint wince and straightened the azure silk of her battle sari to flow with her arms and legs. Ignoring a wave of dizziness, Fang pushed to her feet and scanned the pillared chamber warily.

“He is gone,” a sonorous voice reverberated.

Her face twisted in a spike of bitterness. Anima.

The huntress turned slowly to face her master. The teal-skinned titan stood motionless on his dais. Silver tracery adorned the 'human' side of his half-masked face, and his eye glowed with holy light.

“Decided to talk this time?” she spat.

“It suits my purpose.”

A sharp retort died on her tongue as a bright maze of refractions gracing the floor at her master's feet caught her eye. The shadow-in-light of a hidden form. Fang stepped forward to peer around the column blocking her view, and her heart tumbled as she saw her companion locked in blue crystal. She smothered a shameful pulse of happiness at seeing the young woman, imprisoned though she was. A good person wouldn't be relieved that her only friend was trapped in hell with her. A good person... Fang swallowed the rising lump in her throat. “How long?”

“The same. I have a task for you.”

Fang rubbed a lingering itch of crystal vapor from her eyes. Five hundred years. Not as long as the victims of his last unholy task would rest. She curled her lips in a mirthless smirk. “Here I thought you missed my charming smile.”

“For charm I would wake your companion.”

Her smile fell as a pang of guilt pierced her heart. Vanille was too innocent for slavery to the whims of their degenerate god. Too pure. He should never have chosen her. And yet, the girl had fought faithfully by Fang's side through it all. The perky teen could be dangerously simple, but her unfailing cheer was a powerful buoy in hopeless times. If there was anything in this forsaken world worth fighting for, it was her young friend.

Cold green eyes cut impotently at the masked deity. “I'm not your little puppet, Anima,” the huntress growled.

Rich laughter boomed through the vault in reply, a chant of divine amusement. “Oh, you are. You are. But, I prefer a willing servant. They try harder. Grant my wish, human, and this time I will grant one to you. Nothing extravagant. Do we agree?”

She looked at him askance. He was a bastard, but he had never lied. “Depends what 'extravagant' means...” She hesitated. There was only one thing she wanted anymore. “Send Vanille home. Free of the crystal--free of you--and I'll off your mistress or fan you with palm leaves or whatever the hell it is you can't do this time.”

The unmoving hulk clucked his tongue. “Her prancing amuses me so... No. If you fail, the task will fall to her. Next.”

Her forehead creased instantly in rage at his smug dismissal. Maker, I'd love to cut him down a peg. To cut him down, period. “You drown in a bloody lake! How's that?”

Pain lanced through her head, and the huntress fell to her knees, clutching her skull as tears welled in her eyes. “How is that, Yun Fang?” he thundered. “The 'kindness' I show is merely a fetish. My brethren do not share it, and I need not indulge it.”

She gritted her teeth and glared at him through a blur of tears. “There's the bastard I know and hate.”

And, as suddenly as it started, the pain vanished, leaving a woozy numbness in its wake.

Anima chuckled, his voice deep and resonant as if his chest were an ocean cave. “Defiance? Good. And rage...if you will not serve me, perhaps the demon will.”

The warrior stood up and shrugged to settle her sari loosely on her shoulders. “Never,” she vowed, cursing the faint tremor in her voice. “Never again.” She blinked against a flash of screaming faces, people scattering frantically down collapsing streets, whirling bodies somersaulting into the catacombs of their artificial continent...

“You were magnificent. Shattering the viper's shell and then her skull in single blows! It was glorious.”

Fang shook her head in a vain effort to dispel the specters from her head. “All I could do was watch while... while...”

“There, there. Rest easy, servant. A few proud enemies hardly matter.”

The huntress laughed bitterly. “I may not have enough fingers to get there, but I know a half million is more than a few.”

“Don't you see I want to reward you?” His eye blazed brighter than she'd ever seen it, and it sickened her to her bones to have made the heartless fal'Cie so proud. “You were the vessel. For that you deserve some credit.”

Yun Fang stared listlessly at the plated floor. “Just let me die. A headstone is all the credit I want.”

He laughed so deeply that his statued lips quirked. “And what then? You think your helpless little friend here can survive without you?”

Her shoulders slumped in defeat. Threatening Vanille was always his eventual ploy. And, it always worked. Somehow, this has to be the last time. She squeezed her eyes tight as Bresha-Sura's unearthly scream rose from the depths of her mind.

“Grant my wish, human,” Anima hummed merrily, “and perhaps I will grant yours.”