[FFXIII] Apokalupsis Eschaton 3/?

[shamera]

Title: Apokalupsis Eschaton
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIII
Character/Pairing(s): Lightning, Snow, Sazh, Hope, Team NORA... hell, everyone. --very light Maqui/Hope
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Post-game, plot-heavy. Not so fluffy this time, guys. Action/adventure, mystery, family, friendship.
Summary: Ten million people decided to remain on Cocoon, until one day they all disappeared without a trace, leaving residents on Gran Pulse bewildered and terrified.



He had been right in his original assessment: there was nothing there in the shops. Ten minutes of digging through rubble with thick and clumsy gloved fingers just made Hope feel more frustrated as he struggled not to drop his flashlight and simultaneously study underneath what felt like a ten tonne wall that had crashed into a display case.

Half of the shops he hadn’t even entered, having dismissed them entirely when he read the signs up close and realized they were just clothing shops. Unless they decided to tie dresses together and shimmy down using that as a rope, which was far too much trouble, he doubted that they would need anything from those shops.

Still, what he had been wrong about was that not as many people seemed to have looted through them as he had thought. Most of them had probably gone through the factories that held far more items than the little shops. Heck, the military had probably raided though those factories to take things down for the people on Gran Pulse in exchange for food coming up to Cocoon.

Something crashed heavily next to him as he tried to move, and Hope yelped before scrambling backwards in an attempt to avoid the rain of debris. He hadn’t seen anything get dislodged, but at the rate he could actually see anything... darkness, Hope thought bitterly, was not something he was fond of a single bit.

“What was that?” Snow demanded from the comm line in his helmet, voice shocking clear and loud.

Hope took a moment to slow his breathing before responding, “Nothing. Something fell, that’s all.”

He hated the fact that the others could hear him. He’d have to make sure not make shout out like that next time.

“You sure about that?” Lebreau put in, and Hope winced.

“Yeah. I just hate these suits. Makes it harder to move.” It wasn’t a lie- the bulky things were irritating and he felt like he had to scratch his nose half an hour ago and couldn’t. The itch was still there, subdued only by Hope’s will of mind as he concentrated on other things. “I don’t get why we have to wear them. Didn’t Lieutenant Mosley do an atmospheric test and found nothing off?”

“Just because he didn’t find anything doesn’t mean that there can’t be something there anyway.” Lebreau said. “Our tests aren’t a hundred percent, after all, and there might have been something that we missed.”

“Doubt our suits would be able to protect us if there really was something that was eluding the scanners.” Hope grumbled.

“It’s a good precaution, anyway.” Lebreau said.

“Alright, chatterboxes,” Snow cut in. “I get that you’re fine. Let’s get back to searching now, alright? Did anyone find anything yet, because I think I’m currently stuck in a shop that sells... tins. Man, who even buys things like this?”

“People with far too much money on their hands.” Lebreau snickered, and Hope had to clam his mouth shut to not make a sound because he knew the shop that Snow was talking about, and his mom used to love browsing that shop. It had been something of a pottery shop, although he was certain that all the glass and ceramics had been smashed by the planet fall. The only things left there were probably the delicate steel and bulky metal vases that had been on the back shelves, sitting proudly for an eccentric buyer to come along and claim them.

He was starting to wonder if it wasn’t a better idea to just... send word down to Lieutenant Amodar first about them lacking the supplies to complete the mission, and having it rescheduled to another day. The next day, even, would be fine.

But he didn’t want to be the one to suggest it. He didn’t want to be the one who had been the reason Lightning’s mission had been a failure, at least on his half of it. It was something simple, something less than dangerous, and he had been included because she thought he could contribute something, and damned if Hope wasn’t going to make this mission a success for her.

Find Mosley. Fine. That should be easy enough, even with all the obstacles in the way.

“Hey, I found something,” Lebreau’s voice broke through again. “Must have been someone’s back room or something. Got some equipment here, just had to break through the lock.”

(Break through the lock. A year ago, Hope would never have been able to imagine himself looting, would never associate with anyone who could break locks, and wouldn’t have been left in a dark place alone, especially not on his own insistence. It was almost funny how much had changed.)

“What is it?” Snow asked, and there was a soft grunt from Lebreau that made them all hold their breaths to hear her again.

“Bits and ends. Maqui would love this. He’d probably know what to do with all this junk. Looks like things we can use, but I wouldn’t have the first clue how to put it together.”

The old communicator suddenly felt heavy against his thigh.

“It’d be useful, though?” Hope asked.

“Sure looks like it.” Lebreau confirmed. “Think I should take it all with me anyway?”

“Sounds like a good idea.” Snow said. “At least, get it back to our checkpoint. If we can’t use it, we leave it, no harm done.”

Hope shoved at another downed shelf, clearing the area he was in slightly as he tried to peer around to see if there was anything that might be useful on his end. He wondered vaguely if he’d be able to help out with the things that Lebreau was likely to take, seeing as he had spent a good amount of time with Maqui lately, sometimes just helping him around in the garage, but then thought better of it. Snow and Lebreau had spent much more time with Maqui seeing as they were Team NORA, and if they couldn’t figure out what to do, then what chance did he have?

Just as he thought, there was nothing useful hiding underneath those shelves, either.

“This place is way too quiet.” He murmured softly under his breath, stepping out of that shop and almost breathing a sigh of relief to see the nearly lightened streets. The sun was making its way up in Gran Pulse, and it was be late morning by now, nearing noon. That meant that it was slightly brighter in Cocoon as well, the echo of sunlight filtering through the broken and crystallized shell to land softly in the streets. Almost enough that he didn’t need his flashlights anymore, even if it was still dark and gloomy inside the shops.

“Look sharp, kid. Quiet doesn’t mean safe.”

“I know that, Snow.” There was another shop on the opposite end of the street, but the windows and doors were blocked by pieces of buildings, enough that Hope knew he wouldn’t be able to get in, not without damaging his suit at the very least. Guess that shop was off the list. That meant he was nearly done with his search, and so far the only somewhat useful thing the three of them had managed to find was the things that Lebreau had just reported in about.

A glint caught his eye, and Hope turned to see that strange steel teardrop in the streets again, this time looking softer in the late morning glow. Of all the things, that had been the object he hadn’t been able to place, having been so embedded in the street like that. Hope would have thought it to be some kind of sculpture, but it didn’t look like something that had fallen out of the shops, or anything that people would have worked on. It looked like it had come flying down from the sky at alarming speed to break through the ground like that.

Unbidden, he walked toward it, one hand raised and then pressed against the smooth steel sides. What a strange statue. There was just something about it that felt different, felt... He eyed it closely, gloved hand running down the winding steel.

That was it. It looked new. Completely new while everything around them looked older, worn and tired. The shops had been covered in dust and debris, and even the streets were crumbling from the fall and the past several months. But this... this thing was shining. It was gleaming and clean, smooth and untouched. This thing looked brand new.

“Guys.” He spoke up, because the revelation brought a unease that prompted him to drop his hand and back up a step. “Remember... remember that thing in the streets that we walked past?”

“What thing?” Lebreau asked, and Snow made a sound of inquiry as well.

“That...” How could be describe it? “Jewel, teardrop shaped thing. In the middle of the street.”

“You found something inside of that?” Snow asked, sounding incredulous.

“No. No.” Hope denied quickly. He backed up another step, and looked up at the entirety of it. It was twice as tall as him, maybe; maybe more. And the blackness inside hadn’t dissipated in the slightest, even in the light. “It’s just odd.”

“Yeah, we go that the first time,” said Snow.

“No, I mean it doesn’t look like it came from before the crash. This thing looks new. Really new. Like it’s only been out on display for a few days at best.”

He waited for a second before seeing what looked like a flicker of light within the darkness of the strange... orb? Statue?

“Hope.” Lebreau’s voice was clear as glass. “Stay where you are and don’t go near that thing. We’re heading your way now.”

There was a moment, mere heartbeats, before Snow spoke up as well.

“Hope?”

The sudden silence on the line was deafening.

-

“Anything?” Lightning asked from her perch at the top of what had previously been Sanctum council buildings, trusting Sazh to report back in truthfully. She had sent Gadot to stay on the lookout in case of intruders, or even in case he managed to see someone, anyone, left on the planet.

There had luckily been steps made from broken bookcases and tables that allowed Sazh to climb down and rummage through the broken computer systems and the papers that had quickly been adopted again when the power systems went out. She hadn’t wanted to read the shaky handwriting, knowing that Sazh was much better at deciphering the words than she was. It had been years since anyone other than children on Cocoon had to write anything down, and relearning that muscle memory had been hard on some people. Everyone knew how to write, but no one was used to it anymore.

“Yeah.” Sazh called up. “A bunch of terrible handwriting, that’s what!”

She snorted in amusement. “Not what I meant.”

“Hold your horses,” Sazh said, his voice echoing in the comm system of her helmet. “I’ve got a few things, alright. Looks like they had this project going on to try and restore Cocoon to better days. Sounds fishy, but there aren’t any mentions of fal’Cie or the sort, so it might be just some delusional person’s diary. Heck if I know.”

“Sazh. We need official reports.” Lightning reminded him.

“Soldier, you try telling official from unofficial when it’s all written on paper.” Sazh grumbled. “S’not like there are different levels of encryption to tell what’s actually Sanctum stuff, is there? It’s all just ink on paper, no way of telling what’s what. No filing system, either! How am I supposed to find what’s relevant when it’s folders and folders out here? They should at least have a decent filing system!”

Lightning shifted as her suit beeped softly at her, and she silenced that with a press of her hand against the comms. It was time for a call to Amodar, which she bypassed by typing out a message to him about how it was all still going well. It was more professional than letting her former commanding officer hear Sazh’s cursing and complaining.

It was strangely soothing to hear Sazh’s running commentary about how the system had degenerated.

“Hey, soldier girl!” Sazh called up, unnecessarily loud through the comm. She sighed, but refrained from sniping about whether he knew that he didn’t have to shout through the distance because she already knew that he probably understood the technology better than she did.

“What?” She asked, voice perfectly level.

Sazh was waving sheets of paper at her from inside the chambers

“Come take a look at this.” He called over, and Lightning resisted a sigh. She got up, and jumped down to the bottom of the room, bypassing the steps that had been made out of broken furniture. She didn’t need those to cushion her fall.

“What is it?”

“Schematics.” He said, voice grave. “This weren’t no diary, all right. They were building something, and it looked like something big. Don’t know how any of that works yet, looks like pure nonsense, but hell. Looks like complicated nonsense, and it might be a clue.”

She glared down at the drawings that Sazh handed over, tracing the lines and calculations written by a shaky hand, exclamations and crossed out lines all over the corners. There were sketched out drawings and mathematical equations piled atop each other, with lines of programming jargon that went above her head.

“We’ll take this down to Lieutenant Amodar.” She said. “See if anyone can analyze what this is meant to be.”

“Sure thing.” Sazh responded easily. “Just...” He pointed to a large box, spilling with papers. “I got that from there. Seems rather silly if we take the top sheets but not the rest of it.”

Lightning handed the papers back to Sazh without missing a beat. “Gadot will carry it.”

She was there to oversee the operation, not to be weighed down by carrying crates of blueprints that may or may not be useful. Besides, if Team NORA was going to infiltrate her mission, then they could make themselves useful.

“You know, you don’t need to be so hard on that lot.” Sazh said conversationally as he organized the pile of papers into a semblance of order, getting it to somehow all stay in the box. “I get where they’re coming from, you know. Hell, if I hadn’t spent all that time with you and Hope, I wouldn’t be so sure about you letting him come, either. Both you and I know he can take care of himself. But they don’t. And that makes their worry a legitimate thing.”

“I don’t need them questioning me.” Lightning said, tone firm but soft. Had it been anyone else, she wouldn’t have offered such information, but Sazh had been with her from the very start of their journey during the Purge, and he had followed even when the odds seemed impossible. For that, she was willing to impart more of her thoughts to him.

“Well, you need someone questioning you and keeping you on your toes, even if it ain’t them. What would happen if you got everything you wanted? No one speaks up, and things might go hazy. And we all know the hero and the kid aren’t going to speak up.”

“So you’re doing it for them?”

“Just taking up the slack.” Sazh sounded nonchalant about it. “Seems you don’t like people you don’t know questioning your motives.”

She shifted her weight, unwilling to reveal how uncomfortable she was with this conversation. “And what’s that?”

Sazh stopped his work and looked up, the lights in his helmet giving his face a harder look. “That’d be up to you. But Lightning... you have to decide. Hope’s going to follow your lead. Are you training him to be a soldier or aren’t you?”

She looked away, at the brightening sky beyond the collapsed ceilings of the building. At times, she wondered that herself. She didn’t want the young boy anywhere close to battle, but didn’t want him to go soft, either. He could make the right decisions- he had proven it to her before. She wanted him to be prepared, just in case he needed to make those decisions.

It had been the same with Serah, once upon a time. When she had first joined the Guardian Corps, Lightning had made sure that Serah would never be part of that conflict, would never need to follow her path. She had been strict with her sister, making sure Serah studied hard and carried on, but also taking the time to teach the younger girl how to fight, how to defend herself.

Serah had turned out... better than Lightning could ever have hoped for. But she felt she couldn’t take the credit for that. It had been all Serah’s kindness and patience that allowed her to endure Lightning’s indecision about her sister’s future.

She didn’t have a place in deciding Hope’s future. Bartholomew would be the one to call the shots, but Hope had put his foot down at being coddled, and Lightning could understand that. In some ways, she couldn’t help herself in looking after Hope. He was too strong-willed, too stubborn to back down from anything, and far too resistant to anyone who wanted to keep him safe. Not at all like Serah, who revelled in the moments when Lightning’s hardness fell away and they were sisters rather than a guardian and charge. Serah was soft and sweet, preferring to stay away from battle and trusting in others to make things okay again. Hope couldn’t leave it up to other people anymore, not when he had seen what could happen if he wasn’t there.

...Hope was far too much like her.

“I want him out of the conflict.” She admitted. It was always what she had told herself, even when she couldn’t bring herself to leave him behind. She remembered the look on his face when he thought she was going to leave him, and she just couldn’t do it. It was almost as bad as watching Serah walk away on her twenty-first birthday.

“Then,” Sazh said gently, careful of her thoughts. “You gotta let him down. He’s just going to keep following you, and you’re just going to keep training him to make sure he’s safe, and then eventually he’s going to be a soldier and neither of you will understand how that happened.”

“You’re asking me to leave him behind? Tell him he’s not good enough to come along?” Her tone was sharp, accusing. She couldn’t imagine herself doing that, not when Hope was good enough and she knew how much it meant to him to be included.

“Tell me, would you bring Serah here?” At her silence, Sazh just nodded. “Thought so. You want to see Serah safe. Now the question is, why are you letting Hope wander into danger? And don’t say you aren’t ‘letting’ him.” Sazh held up a hand to stem her scathing retort. “Because this is your mission, just like you said. You could have kept him down on Pulse, safe with those NORA boys.”

She could have. But she needed his back-up, just in case. They were l’Cie... no. They used to be l’Cie, and even if the brand faded away from their flesh, it felt tattooed onto her soul. She wasn’t fool enough to think she could leave that phase of her life behind her. It had changed her, had changed all of them, irrevocably.

She didn’t understand it herself. So she did what she did best; shrug off the conversation and concentrate on matters at hand.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s here now.” And really, that’s what she would deal with, rather than asking herself what ifs and second guessing her own decisions.

Sazh gave her a long look and finally agreed, “Suppose not.”

“Hey!” The both of them looked up, Lightning as calmly as possible, toward the silhouette of Gadot atop the building, a gun slung over one shoulder confidently. Lightning frowned at the sight- if there really were people hiding away from them here, she didn’t want to give them the impression that the group of them were here for trouble.

Weapons, she thought, should be holstered until they were necessary.

“Call from Lebreau!” He shouted down, pointing to the area on his arm with the comms. “What the heck are the both of you doing down there? Thought only one person should be in that room since it’s shielded from radio-wave interference?”

“We found something!” Sazh called, and Lightning felt a twinge of annoyance. Of course the both of them would shout when they didn’t need to. “Hang on, Lebreau called? Isn’t that a bit early?”

Gadot’s faint but somber expression was all that was needed for Lightning to climb her way out of the building quickly, her jumps careful and precise.

The sounds over her comm was immediately clearer as she exited, and she responded to the call. “What.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment before Snow spoke up. “Lightning. We found something here that might have to do with how everyone’s gone.”

She frowned. Snow’s tone was more serious than what she expected, and there was a distinctive lack of the confident swagger in his voice that she had gotten used to. It had been a long time since he called her anything other than ‘sis’ as if it were his personal mission to provoke her into strangling him. But what could he have possibly found in his search for Lieutenant Mosley? It should have been an easy in and out mission, with them waiting for her team at the Cie’th stone long before they were done.

But Gadot’s expression was heavy, and Sazh was climbing out of the council chambers behind her, and Lightning knew that something serious had happened.

“Send a flare. We’ll be there.” But no, it wasn’t just that. There was something about the way Snow had spoke... “What is it?”

“Looks like a sort of generator.” Snow replied. “Round. And it’s definitely emitting a hell lot of energy. We passed it earlier, and it was completely dark. Now... Lightning, this thing is lighting up the whole street.”

That sounded like exactly what their entire team had been sent up to look for. She nodded absentmindedly, already on her way down from the building and confident that both Gadot and Sazh would be following her. In the distance, she could see the red light of a flare going up in the sky. It was far, looked about three hours’ walk, but she was certain that she could cover the distance in well under a quarter of that time without any hardships. So long as Snow kept out of trouble.

“Lightning.” And this time, Snow’s voice was softer, barely audible.

She merely grunted an acknowledgement. She was already on her way, responding would be a waste of breath.

She heard Snow take a breath.

“Hope’s gone.”

-

He didn’t know what happened.

One moment, there had been a flickering light within the darkness of that strange object embedded in the ground.

The next moment, it was bright. And it wasn’t even the type of bright that blinded him because it had come directly at him from the front, either. It was an overwhelming light, sudden and intense against his eyes where seconds ago it had been nearly pitch black. It was coming from everywhere, almost. Above him most of all, like intense sunlight suddenly streaming down.

“Hey.” The voice was distant. “Are you okay?”

Lebreau? He thought blearily, blinking away tears as his eyes adjusted slowly to the brightness. Everything was still a sea of white.

A touch on his shoulder made him flinch away, but the grip was firm and relentless.

“Hey, you’re okay.” The voice was soothing, and louder now. “I’ve got you. Bit of a woozy, wasn’t it?”

He could see his hands in front of him now, covered by the pale blue of the bio-suit. The street, unblemished and clean. It was bright still, looking about mid-day. He looked up to see a lady smiling at him, her face unfamiliar.

“Hey, why are you dressed like that?” And just like that, she reached for the clasps of his helmet, pressing lightly against buttons and safety mechanisms, and there was a hiss of released air as she pulled it off deftly. “Now, that’s better, isn’t it? No wonder you were woozy! Could you even breathe in that thing?”

He blinked up, then panicked and stepped back, reaching up to where his helmet was supposed to be. He wasn’t supposed to take that off! Just because there were no anomalies found in the environmental systems for Cocoon didn’t mean that there were things that the scanners wouldn’t be able to detect, at least according to Lebreau!

But the world around him was bright. Clean. He blinked rapidly, wondering if he had suddenly gone insane as he took in the sights around him. Palumpolum as it had once been, whole and bright and beautiful, sunlight glistening as the streets bustled with people and noise, hovercars zooming down the street and the air crisp as it once was, made all the more apparent by the foil of the bio-suit recycled oxygen.

“Wha-?” He couldn’t seem to find his voice. Everything was too bright and vivid, fantastical compared to the wasteland he had spent the last several hours traversing through, heavy with the knowledge that it had once been his home.

But this place was what looked like his home. This was Palumpolum as he remembered it, the streets now familiar where just minutes ago they had been unfamiliar.

The lady stood just a few feet beside him, lips quirked in a smile. “You’re a funny kid. What are you doing in one of those suits, anyway? Those aren’t toys, you know.”

He just stared at her blankly.

She gave him a peculiar look and tossed the helmet at him, making Hope step back awkwardly to catch it. “Suit yourself, kid. Don’t go crying when whoever you took that suit off of gets pissy with you. Honestly. Must be some new fashion I didn’t know about, walking about in bio-suits.”

It took him another few moments to digest her words as the woman walked away, but Hope fought through the haze of his shock. “Wait! You know someone else wearing this?”

Because... because Lieutenant Mosley came through in a suit, right? And he had his beacon on him, the one that was tied to the suit but Snow had been convinced was underneath the city.

The woman turned back and regarded him. “Yeah. Found him wandering the streets last night. Panicked a few people who thought there might be some kind of epidemic. Don’t know where he went, though. Think he was Guardian Corps or something. You looking for him, kid?”

Hope thought fast. “Yeah. I- I got this suit off him, but I’m supposed to give it back today before I head home.”

“Funny thing, walking around in it.”

“Thought it’d make me more obvious?” Hope squeaked, and winced at his own voice. “Thanks for the update, though.”

She wandered away, leaving Hope to muse about what just happened to himself.

Where was he? Had he suddenly been teleported? That would make sense in a way, but what didn’t make sense was how this place looked just like Palumpolum.

Realizing he was getting more than a few stares in his bio-suit, Hope managed to find a corner to shimmy out of the bulky thing, figuring that if the helmet was off, then it wasn’t as if taking off the suit would do any more damage. It was a good thing he was wearing his normal clothing underneath, up to his gloves and capelet and neckerchief.

He stayed in the shadows with the suit at hand, pressing against the comms system and trying to find a signal. “Snow? Lebraeu? ...Lightning?”

Several minutes of silence from the comm later, Hope had given up in frustration. Smoothing down his hair a moment, Hope looked around wondering if he would have to carry the suit (still a bulky thing, even compressed) or whether he could find somewhere to hide it.

Would it even be a good idea to leave it anywhere, though? What if the trouble with communications was just a momentary glitch that would resolve itself with time? It didn’t seem likely, but if there was even the slightest chance... He winced, leaning against the outer wall of a shop. He had gotten separated from the others. Not something that he thought would ever happen, to be honest. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to find anything of real use in the shops, much less find himself somewhere... different.

Where was this place?

He had to find Lieutenant Mosley.

Hope bundled up the suit as tightly as possible, wrapping the flimsier parts around the helmet until it looked like a strange shapeless thing of pale blue. At least then he could pull off just running an errand for someone, carrying things around. He could... he’d be able to ask around, actually, if he had the suit with him.

The best clue he had at the moment was where the signal had been coming from- underneath the city in the service tunnels housing Carbuncle. With the place looking it did before the Purge, he would have no problem finding his way into one of those tunnels.

Stepping out of the shadows and following a crowd to remain undetected, Hope kept his head down while trying to surreptitiously trying to gather more clues about this place. It couldn’t be Palumpolum, since he had just been in Palumpolum not minutes ago. Unless he had been knocked out? Transported? The signs were all the same as he remembered, and even the streets boasted the same names. Shops had billboards that drew people in with weekend sales and promotional discounts.

He made his way through the main streets, studying the electronic screens for a hint that this may be somewhere else... or even of the date, which seemed strangely absent. It was a far-fetched idea, but had he somehow landed in the past? The future?

It couldn’t be it, since Snow still had the signal from Mosley’s suit.

At least, he really really hoped he hadn’t somehow gotten stuck in the past.

“Stop.”

Hope froze as he turned the corner toward one of the underground entrances and found a pair of Guardian Corps soldiers at the doorway. “Uhh...”

“Scram, kid. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I’m supposed to deliver this suit to Lieutenant Mosley.” He rushed, the idea coming to him as his words were forming. “His suit got torn yesterday.”

The soldiers looked at each other, and Hope fought not to squirm or fidget in his lie. Well, it wasn’t quite a lie- he really was looking for Mosley, after all.

“Bit young to be errand boy, aren’t you?” One of the soliders said, sounding incredulous.

Hope shrugged. “I’m interning. Weekend thing for school service points. Guardian Corps seemed more interesting than getting coffee for the scientists at Sunleth.”

The soldier chuckled at him, and then moved a pace back. “Too right it is. Get that suit to the lieutenant, then. I heard he didn’t sound quite right in his head yesterday.”

The other soldier looked more reluctant to let just some kid who claimed to be running errands through, but then how else would he have that bio-suit, right? He finally shifted reluctantly, gesturing with an armoured hand, “Be quick about it. No loitering around.”

“Sure,” Hope agreed quickly, and squeezed past the soldiers onto the platform, calling up the holographic panel for the computer to take him down. He allowed himself a sigh of relief only as the platform started going down and closed above his head, blocking out the soldiers.

He didn’t remember those entrances being guarded before. Kids were usually scurrying all around the area until one of the scientists would shoo them away. What was going on?

No, Hope thought, this isn’t Palumpolum.

Kids played around the tunnels before the Purge. Now, Cocoon was a dead world and wherever this was, it wasn’t the city Hope had grown up in.

Luckily, the lift opened up again to reveal mostly empty paths, with only a few scientists who either hurried along or only gave him a curious glance before going back to whatever they were doing. Hope kept his head down, trying not to remember all the fights that he had gone through the last time he had been down there, all the maintenance creatures that he and Light had to battle through in order to get into the city.

“Excuse me,” He demurred to one of the scientists, careful to keep his head ducked in a sheepish manner and his eyes wide as he looked up through his bangs. If there was one advantage to his age and size, it was that people usually saw him as harmless at first glance. It never hurt to help reinforce the image if he needed to. “I’m looking for Lieutenant Mosley? I- I got lost.”

The man visibly softened from the scowl he had when he had turned away from his work, and nodded toward Hope. “Mosley, hmm? I can look for him if you want. Is he on shift down here today?”

Hope hesitated. Was he? He wasn’t entirely sure of what he was doing, but only an hour ago Snow had said Mosley’s bio-suit readings were coming from under the city, and at the very least, Hope was going to trust that.

“I think he might have been an hour ago?” Playing up the lost child was almost sickening, but it was the easiest way to slip around. “At least, I was told he was down here. I’m supposed to deliver something to him.”

“Is that a bio-suit?”

“Yeah. I think something happened to his yesterday...?” From what he had been able to gather, anyway. Hope wasn’t sure what had gone on, but he figured that Mosley probably got here the same way he did (and how was that?) last night and freaked out before getting recognized and accepted into this place. He still didn’t know why the security measures were there.

“I heard about that.” The scientist said absentmindedly, having turned back to his computer to bring up another screen, this one to search for people down in the sub-levels of Palumpolum. “He went a bit nuts, talked about being lost and not knowing where this was. Probably needed a vacation, that guy.” He nodded to himself, and then looked over his shoulder at Hope. “Keep going left. Take the lift down to sub-base. Heard he’s working with Carbuncle today.”

“Thanks.” Left, then down. It seemed simple enough, and Hope waited until the scientist’s attention was completely diverted from him before he went on his way, surprised at how easy it was to sneak down there.

He was pretty much ignored the rest of the way, but he kept his head down anyway and rushed long, trying to look as if he knew what he was doing and why he was there. The glow of Carbuncle was bright on the pathways, and he glared inadvertently, knowing that it wasn’t right. Carbuncle and all the other fal’Cie on Cocoon had been gone for months now.

This place was... He stepped down heavier just to make sure, and yes, the walkways were solid. It was real, as real as he could figure it to be.

There was a man at the end of the platform, staring over the railing and ignoring the computer screens entirely, still as he watched the rotating glow of Carbuncle hard at work, the light spinning as it continued to generate food for the population of Cocoon.

“Lieutenant Mosley?” Hope called out. The area was empty of all other people, and there was a telling blue bio-suit hanging over the railing near the brown-haired man.

The man tensed, not looking back.

“I don’t need any help,” the man gritted out. “So you can take your coffee and leave.”

Hope’s eyes widened. Well, it certainly sounded like he was acknowledging who he was... he cleared his throat. “I’m not here with coffee. Lieutenant Mosley? I was sent up with the second group to Cocoon after your communications failure with Lieutenant Amodar. I’m Hope Estheim-”

“The politician’s kid?” Mosley turned, eyes narrowed but seemingly more willing to talk. “Wait. Second group? You’re from Gran Pulse?”

If it really were Cocoon, Hope knew, the Cocoon as it had been mere months ago, mentioning that he was from Pulse was not only a death sentence, but a killing order for everyone in the city.

“Yeah.” He admitted, feeling reluctant to do so.

Mosley’s face ran a gauntlet of emotions, from skeptical and incredulous to outright relief and then the full circle back again. “They sent a kid up after me?”

Hope had to bite back a scowl. That was not the point (not to mention, he had just about had it with the ‘kid’ title). “They sent a team. I happened to be part of that team. I happen to be the part of the team that found you.”

So he might have felt a bit snappy. He thought he was due at least that, seeing as he had been separated from everyone else but still managed to fulfil mission parameters.

Mosley darted forward, covering the distance between them in two steps before Hope could even think wow, he’s almost as tall as Snow- and grasped his shoulders tightly.

“Do you have a way back?” Mosley demanded, and Hope flinched back involuntarily. “Did you find one?”

“What-? No! I don’t even know how I got here, but I did!”

Mosley let go of him, and Hope backed up two steps just in case, hunching his shoulders tensely as the man moved.

“Then they shouldn’t have sent a kid!” Mosley cursed, going back to where he had stood before at the railing, glaring out at the void between himself and Carbuncle. “It should have been - soldiers and scientists! I need to either solve this thing before nightfall, or force my way out.”

Hope shifted the suit to one arm, rubbing at his sore shoulder. “Solve what thing? You’re not making any sense.”

“This world.” Mosley’s tone was bitter. “Is a virtual construct. Created by the remains of the Sanctum to provide a better world for those who decided to remain on Cocoon. To give them better lives, of past happiness. Too many people who stayed were grieving and dying because they were unable to go on, and there was nothing that could have revived Cocoon. So they decided to go back. By using the physical bodies as energy, they recreated Cocoon. It was only supposed to be a test run - twenty-four hours to see how stable the world was. But everyone here... they couldn’t bear to leave this world and return back to the real world. And when the twenty-four hours was up, they decided they would rather stay and forget anything bad had ever happened.”

Hope boggled. “What?”

“The Revival Project.” Mosley was back to staring at space again. “A virtual Cocoon- Estheim, are you not getting this?”

“I get it.” Hope snapped. “I just don’t understand how they managed to do- this, without anyone on Gran Pulse knowing. We thought they all just disappeared.”

“They didn’t think it would work. It was only supposed to take a small group of people, maybe enough to fill a room, but it was more powerful than they thought it would be. It took the entire world.”

“How do you even know all of this?” Hope demanded. “How come you didn’t tell anyone about it?”

“You think I could? I’ve been stuck here since I found out. Since before. I was here before the system overwrite, when people still understood that this was nothing but VR. But this morning, that’s when everything changed. After they decided to stay, it’s like they forgot anything relating to the purge or Cocoon Fall.” He gave a short, barking laugh. “They don’t even know - some of them talk to people who don’t exist anymore. It’s like this place is eager to give them everything they ever wanted back. And the override’s been used. Twenty-four hours, and that’s what going to happen to us as well.”

“But we could track your signal.” Hope protested. “That’s how I knew where you were.”

Mosley turned. “You tracked me?”

“Yes!” Hope waved at the suit, still not daring to get any closer to the man, half convinced the other was crazy in some way. “Pretty much to the exact location, too!”

Mosley snatched up his suit to study it, revealing the blinking light of the tracking device.

“I didn’t think it would get through.” He admitted quietly, most of the anger draining from his voice. “None of my transmissions get through. How did this...?”

Hope didn’t understand, either. But he wasn’t as ready to accept everything as Mosley had. If the tracking signal could get through, then they could get messages through somehow. It also revealed a few things - if what Mosley had said about virtual reality was true, it meant that it was a field spread all over Cocoon. After all, the tracking device led him down under Cocoon, and that was where Mosley had been. That meant it wasn’t all contained in one area, like some computer hard-drive. It was spread all around where he walked, as if they were ghosts walking around Cocoon.

“What time is it?” Mosley snapped suddenly, and Hope blinked.

“I don’t know? Around noon?”

“Noon.” Mosley mused. “Six more hours for me. Come then, Estheim, we’ve six hours to figure out how to leave this place.”

He turned on his heel and walked away, as if expecting Hope to follow, and the young boy seethed. What kind of person was Mosley, anyway? For a lieutenant, the man seemed more like a snappy scientist than anything else. Hope had rarely been exposed to people like him, the type who seemed to take the world around him for granted in a manner that meant everyone should cater to his needs. His mom had taken him aside the first time he had, once when his dad had brought home an important work associate for dinner, and told him that no matter how irritating the man was, he was to smile and nod.

Afterward, she had said, she would listen to all his complaints about how the man was a meanie-head and poop-face.

(Back then, he had gasped at his mom using that type of language and laughed as she made faces at him, and somehow that exchange had kept his spirits up all through dinner even as he struggled not to cry when the mean man subtly picked on everything from his small stature to how he must not have many friends at school or be any good at sports. In the end, it had been his dad who stormily asked the man to please leave.)

Now his mom wasn’t there to make faces to cheer up him, but Hope knew that there was little he had to worry about. He could handle his own insecurities, and it wasn’t as if the man knew him, or that his opinion mattered to Hope much.

Still, it was the attitude that irritated Hope, even as he followed the man. He was there to retrieve Mosley, after all, so the man had to be his first priority. Which mean he couldn’t accidentally lose him, as irritating as he was.

“Where are we going if you don’t have a clue how to get us out yet?” Hope asked.

“An experiment. You said you could track me?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And then you disappeared, yes?” Mosley made a noise. “Never mind. Of course you wouldn’t know, you just ended up here. But assume that you disappeared up in the Cocoon we know - the one that’s dark and dead. Do the rest of your team know how you disappeared?”

Hope assumed Snow and Lebreau would figure it had something to do with that strange orb thing in the street. “They should.”

“Should.” The man snorted. “Is not good enough. No. We’re going to take the suit back up and place it where the transporter should be so they’ll know there is something odd about it.”

Loathe as he was to admit, Hope could see how that was a good idea.

Above the sub-base level, the scientists gave Mosley a wide berth, barely acknowledging his existence with a nod before scurrying away, as if somehow knowing he didn’t belong. They didn’t have any problems getting out from underneath the city, where they met the two soldiers guarding the same entrance, both of who stepped back respectfully.

“You got a transmitter, Estheim?” Mosley asked casually as they wandered through the streets, this time practically ignored the moment someone saw the Guardian Corps insignia on Lieutenant Mosley’s uniform.

“I wouldn’t know.” Hope admitted.

“You should have been briefed before you mission.”

Hope huffed. “We didn’t exactly have the time for a full briefing, since we were told about this the night before. It was supposed to be an easy mission- get you, and get out.”

“Well, it has evolved far beyond that, hasn’t it?” Mosley quipped. The sunlight made it harder for Hope to stay irritated, drawing his attention to the people around them just going about their day, chattering happily to each other hurrying to their next location. He had once been like that.

“Don’t those people even realize that this place isn’t real?” Hope murmured to himself.

“Do you? If I hadn’t told you this was virtual reality?” Mosley stopped at a random point in the street, the only clear spot in an otherwise busy street. “Does the street not feel solid? The light not feel real? Isn’t it warm when it’s only been cold on Cocoon the past several months?”

He snorted. “No. The construct that created this place is very thorough. If they choose not to believe in the tragic demise of Cocoon, they they are safe here, sheltered from the truth.”

He dropped the suit down in the middle of the street, mindless of the people surrounding them. “Yours too, Estheim.”

Normally, Hope would have questioned that decision, but he was sure his irritation would only mount if he tried to question Mosley. He dropped the armful of blue bio-suit down on the ground atop the other suit.

“Now what?”

“Now we figure out why that signal was able to get through when our comms system can not. Tell me, Estheim, are you any use at a terminal?”

“It’s Hope.” He snapped out, because Estheim made him feel like he had gotten into trouble at school. “And yes, I know my way around computers.” He was fourteen, not four. What fourteen year old couldn’t operate a computer?

The tall man (scientist? Soldier?) stared at him with narrowed eyes for a moment before he nodded as if Hope had passed some sort of test. Or failed it. Either way, he seemed to have come to some kind of conclusion about the young boy.

“Then you’re going to help me hack this system. Find a way to transmit the signal out into the real world and tell them where we are and what’s going on. Even if we don’t make it out, they’re not to send more people to check this out. People here are as safe as they can get, and this is their own choice.”

Idiotic choice, was the unspoken comment.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘if we don’t make it out’? We’ve got six hours to solve this right? You can’t just give up before that time’s up!”

“I’m not giving up, Estheim.” Hope steamed at the purposeful use of his last name. “I’m being realistic. They shouldn’t have sent a kid up here, never mind Bartholomew’s kid. This was a dangerous mission from the get-go, and I don’t have time babysitting you, so you’re going to have to make yourself useful.”

“I am useful!”

“You think so? You’ve got,” Mosley pointed to a digital clock at the side of an advertising billboard. “Six hours to prove it to me.

“Starting now.”

Welp. Did I just write this in under two days? Why yes, yes I did. Story is staring to take shape now, 25k in. Happenstances and dilemma is now revealed. And now... now I really should get working on my paperlegends, seeing as I've written in the past two days more than I have for the entirely of my BB story so far (and I've been staring at it for a month!).