Then she shot a bunch of stuff.
I don't particularly like writing fight scenes. This is partly because I have no particular skill at writing choreography, and partly because it takes valuable time away from the snarky banter that I think is the true Platonic ideal of fiction. And because I don't like them, I always feel like I'm not making them long enough. "Eh, that fight didn't seem challenging enough. I should add some more fighting! And then I end up thinking this scene went on way longer than I wanted it to.
So naturally all my fanfic seems to focus on adventure games. I've gotten reasonably good at writing around the battle (Sidelines kind of turned into an exercise in how many of FFVIII's boss battles I can short-circuit), but with Covenant I seem to have gotten myself into a fic where most of the pivotal plot points in the first half are fight scenes. Even better, I've planned for ages that the next chapter of Moonlight would be the biggest fight scene I've ever written. Go figure.
All of which is to say, here's Chapter 2. Still rated PG-13 for...let's say fighting.
The commotion had started just after midnight, as the revelers were making their way home. There was no alert, just shouts in the distance and then a series of rapid pops, off in the direction of the old Pulse Vestige. Most of the civilians paid the noises little heed, probably taking them for more fireworks and shrugging it off when they couldn’t see any starbursts in the sky.
But the festival had ended nearly half an hour earlier, and Lightning knew gunfire when she heard it.
Technically, Lightning been off-duty since midway through the fireworks festival. Lieutenant Amodar had taken over her shift, told her to take the rest of the night off. He’d also told her to keep her nose out of whatever was going on with the Vestige. “Nothing good will come of it. Nothing but grief.”
But her house was off in that direction anyway.
The townsfolk she passed on the road got increasingly unsettled by the distant commotion. The sight of a Guardian Corps sergeant running by probably wasn’t helping, so Lightning tried to keep herself to a reasonably casual-looking jog. She also noticed that the PSICOM troops appeared to have vanished, just as she was getting used to seeing them lurking on every corner. She took it as another clue about who was behind all the shooting, one she didn’t really need.
She reached the bend in the road that led down to her house, and the other beachside residences, but didn’t follow it. The path leading off toward the Vestige was narrower and more dimly lit, cutting through the woods on the outskirts of town, so Lightning slowed her pace a bit. There was still no sign of PSICOM, and as she neared the far side of the trees, a high-pitched wail rose in the distance and the gunfire stopped as well.
The Vestige stood on an island across a shallow bay, connected to the city by a long footbridge. Given what the Lieutenant had told her, about PSICOM nosing around in the ruins, she’d expected soldiers to have the whole bridge barricaded. She could demand some answers, they’d tell her to move along, and based on how rude they were she could gauge how serious the situation was.
Only the creatures on the bridge weren’t PSICOM. Their shapes were just human enough that they couldn’t be monsters, but they couldn’t be mistaken for people: Their proportions were all wrong, their forms encrusted with masses of black crystal, and they moved with the jerking gait of marionettes. On each of their chests was a perfect black circle with an eerie red glow in the center, pulsing like a sort of heartbeat.
Lightning stopped in her tracks at the edge of the treeline, catching her breath in surprise. The nearest of the things was just at the edge of the bridge, not five meters away - and it looked even closer, standing two or three heads taller than she did.
It was around then that Lightning remembered she didn’t have her gunblade. Her assignment had been guard duty in the middle of Bodhum, watching to make sure nobody’s ex-boyfriend got out of line and no kids strayed too close to the fireworks, so her gear amounted to a tiny AMP pistol and her grav-con unit. She drew the former, hoping the things would go down easy.
As it happened, the creature shambled right by, passing within arm’s reach without giving any sign of seeing her. Lightning stayed stalk-still for another minute, as three more of the things lurched past her, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
Letting them get a respectable distance away, she pulled out her earpiece, keying in the secure channel for her regiment’s headquarters. “Base, this is Farron. Security breach in the Vestige District. Witnessed multiple monsters in Shoreside, heading inland.”
“Copy, Sergeant,” replied the voice of one of the base’s dispatch officers. “We’ve got reports of fighting in that area, but PSICOM’s got a standing directive to stay clear.”
“Well, I don’t see PSICOM - just monsters,” Lightning replied. “Get a team out here before one of them threatens the town. And bring the big guns.”
“Understood.”
“Out.” Lightning switched off her radio and tried to decide whether to track the creatures or head back to her house, get her gunblade and then try to catch up. But then she spotted a piece of pale fabric had caught on the underbrush, near the edge of the clearing. Although she couldn’t see it too clearly in the pale light from the bridge lamps, she had a bad feeling in her gut even before she picked it up.
The garment was a thin pink sweeper, just like the one Serah always wore. Only this one had been ripped nearly to shreds.
Dropping it, Lightning pulled out her flashlight. There was no blood, either on the clothes or the ground, but the area was scattered with shell casings from military-issue machine guns. Lightning looked back at the bridge leading out toward the Vestige, and this time noticed the bullet holes and blasted earth from a thermal grenade near the edge of the walkway.
Then she heard the wailing noise again, off in the direction those inhuman creatures had gone.
Whatever was going on, those things were involved, and Serah along with them, so chasing the sound wasn’t just an option anymore. Pistol in hand, Lightning headed back into the wood.
The four shamblers that had passed her earlier were making better time than she would have guessed, crashing through the woods as though they couldn’t see the trees until they were bouncing off of one. Still, they were following a decent approximation of a straight line, and Lightning guessed they had to know where they were going somehow. She passed them by, striking ahead toward the inland ridge that she could only guess was their destination.
This area should be deserted after dark; there was a hiking trail that ran along the Shoreside Peaks, but it wasn’t lit and most campers would have chosen a site with a better view of the fireworks. But the farther Lightning went, the more sure she was that she could hear something up ahead - heavy footsteps, not unlike those of the shamblers she’d left behind, and a strange lowing sound that sounded halfway between mechanical and alive.
Shortly after she hit the trail, she saw the first PSICOM troops - three of them, lying amid a circle of pulverized trees, their bodies not looking much better. Lightning checked them for pulses more out of procedure than any expectation of survivors inside the smashed combat suits, and she wasn’t surprised. There was a plain trail of destruction now, and it led her uphill.
After several more dead PSICOM soldiers and a few fallen shamblers, the path led her out above the treeline, to a series of hanging bridges that linked the series of ever more impressive lookout sites built onto the peaks. The noises were so close now that Lightning had to be nearly on top of their source, though she was beginning to realize that the sounds were carrying an unnatural distance as well.
The first lookout site looked like a stampede had passed through it, but she didn’t see any signs of fighting. But she did see one of the shamblers trying to make its way across the bridge to the second peak. And she saw a girl’s figure, pale hair illuminated by Eden’s light, standing on the peak and looking trapped.
“Serah!” she called, charging forward onto the bridge.
“Lightning!” Her sister gasped out the word; her voice carried equal parts exhaustion and terror.
“Hold on!” she shouted back, trying not to sound worried herself.
The shambler was about halfway across the bridge, and hadn’t reacted to her at all. Lightning did her best to close the distance, but its footsteps made the bridge all but impossible to navigate, so she got as close as she could, snapped her fingers, and leapt forward as soon as she felt the grav-con field take hold. Forward became down, and she had just enough time to orient her boots before they slammed into the ghoul’s midsection. The impact nearly knocked it over, but one of its clawlike hands caught the bridge’s suspension chain - dumb luck, she thought, and it started floundering around to face its new attacker. While was trying to right itself, Lightning leveled her pistol at the thing, firing two shots before her feet even landed on the bridge. The shambler flailed some more, but tipped over the side of the bridge and fell.
Which would have been great, if it hadn’t flipped the bridge half-over as it went. Lightning reached out for the chain, the shambler lashed out at her, and neither of them quite hit their mark.
Since she’d just drained the charge on her grav-con unit, it was a pretty hard fall. She landed hard on her side and rolled off another drop, coming to rest in a mess of roots and feeling thankful that she hadn’t felt anything break. She’d held on to her pistol, too.
She could see Serah above her, leaning over the peak’s rim. Watching her sister take a fall like that couldn’t have done her night any favors, and Lightning resolved to make the fight look easier from here on out.
The shambler seemed to have landed even harder than she had, crashing onto a boulder that jutted out from the ridge. Its right side seemed to have a new dent in it, and one of its legs had gained an extra joint - but none of that stopped it from getting up, and immediately starting back up the ridge.
“Hey!” Lightning shouted, bringing up her pistol and shooting the thing again. It was set for a heavy stun blast, one shot of which would have thrown a grown man off his feet and left him unconscious the rest of the night. The creature just shuddered a bit and stumbled in its tracks. But she did get its attention, as it turned around to face her.
Adjusting the pistol to its maximum setting, she closed the distance with the fastest sprint she could manage across the rough uphill terrain and delivered three quick kinetic shots straight into the creature’s neck, then snapped her grav-con field back on and used every bit of the small charge it had regenerated to drive the fist of her free hand right into its face. The thing’s head snapped backward, black fluid started to ooze out of a break in the crystals encrusting its neck, and it fell twitching to the ground and didn’t get up.
She looked up, trying to work out the best way to the peak -
“Look out!”
- and saw Serah pointing at something behind her. Lightning spun around and spotted two more shamblers crashing through the trees, heading straight at her. She fired two quick shots, catching one of them in the head and one in that glowing orb on its chest. That seemed to slow them down, at least, so she turned and made a run for the peak. But for the inelegance of their motion, the things’ overgrown limbs were well-suited for climbing, and the shamblers seemed to be making better time than she was, especially as she got back above the treeline and the number of footholds dropped significantly.
“Serah-” she called, glancing up toward the ridge. She’d meant to tell her sister to run, that she’d catch up on the other side of the ridge, but Serah wasn’t looking at her anymore. Lightning could see two more of the shamblers silhouetted against the sky, lurching up onto the peak and flanking her sister. The red glow from their chests cast Serah in a hellish light.
Catching her breath, Lightning leveled her pistol and fired. She aimed low and wide to avoid hitting Serah, and she was too far away to have much hope of striking the creatures anyway. It was an act of desperation, and she was stunned when it actually worked: Both shamblers turned to face her and started back down the ridge. Lightning wasn’t crazy about the four-to-one odds, but she preferred them to two against Serah.
Suddenly, another woman was on the peak with Serah, grabbing her arm. Lightning only saw her for a second, a shadow against the sky, but she caught wild dark hair, some kind of flowing sash, and a double-bladed spear. Serah yelped, and then both of them vanished behind the ridge.
“Serah!” Lightning yelled, but she barely got the word out before something sharp hit her from behind. She fell face-first onto the slope, rolled over and fired at the shambler standing over her. It caught one shot in its shoulder, another on its hand, a third in its chest, and then Lightning was scrambling to her feet, trying to sprint towards the peak. But the second shambler caught her in the leg; its hand felt like sandpaper and its fingertips sliced straight through her skin. She kicked, knocking it off balance, shooting the first one in the head once more to make sure it stayed down and then unloaded on its partner. It got one more swipe in at her shoulder, landing right on the pauldron and leaving a nasty scratch across her Sergeant’s bars, before she worked out that the pulsing orb in its chest was a weak spot and sent it crashing down the slope as well. With a quick glance at her leg, which was bleeding more than she would have liked, she gritted her teeth and charged up toward the peak.
The last two shamblers were kicking up a small avalanche on their way down to her. Lightning dodged a couple particularly large rocks, but put too much weight on her injured leg and faltered. Before she could snap on her grav-con unit, which had built up nearly a quarter charge by now, the ghouls were on her, one slashing across her side and the other opting opting for the full-on body slam. Lightning ducked, and most of the creature’s weight flipped right over her, but it still knocked her to her knees.
And once the things were on top of her, it was impossible to find her footing. Their limbs were everywhere she tried to find purchase, razor fingers cutting at her arms and testing the slash resistance of her uniform. She fired back, but the damn things’ lurching made it impossible to aim.
Finally, she caught one of their legs with a well-placed kick, and gained herself half a second’s freedom. Rolling over onto her knees, she snapped on her grav-con unit and jumped, shooting five meters straight into the air. Picking one of the shamblers, she delivered three shots into its head and chest. Then, just as she felt her unit’s charge running out, she reversed the gravity field and sent herself crashing down onto the second one, driving her feet into its chest with a satisfying crunch. The first one looked to be recovering, so she shot it once more, right in the orb, and then bashed it on the head for good measure. Then she left their bodies behind and started back uphill.
The observation deck was empty, with no sign of a struggle and no trace of Serah. There was nobody on the bridge, or on the peaks in either direction, and she saw no one on the far side of the ridge. She called Serah’s name, but the only thing she heard back were the thumping footsteps of more shamblers.
A moment later, three of them emerged from the treeline, lurching up toward her. “I don’t have time for this,” she hissed, leveling her pistol once more.
Just as she was about to charge down at the things, she heard another, much more welcome noise. Looking back towards the city, she saw two of her garrison’s velocycles swooping in, raking the creatures with gunfire. The damn things went down almost too easily, after what they’d put her through.
Lightning raised her hand, but one was already circling in to a hover landing on the observation deck. “Sergeant!” called the pilot, a tall blond-haired man with corporal’s bars; his parade uniform said that he hadn’t planned to be on patrol today.
“Dacks!” She stopped herself from asking what took him so long. “Did you see anyone else in the area on your way in?”
He shook his head. “Just a few more of those monsters you called in. What are those things, anyway?”
Lightning had completely lost track of that question, and she shook it out of her head now. “There’s no time. We need to sweep these woods, right away!”
“Don’t worry, Sergeant, we’re taking care of it.” Dacks glanced at her arms and leg, which Lightning had forgotten were still bleeding. “Maybe you should-”
“No, listen to me!” She grabbed his arm, leaving a bloody handprint on his uniform sleeve. “It’s my sister. Someone took her.”
-
She didn’t leave the woods until they’d swept the entire district. A thermal sweep established pretty quickly that there were no humans left in the wood, after which they’d checked on foot for bodies. They’d found quite a few - mostly PSICOM, a few unlucky campers - but none of them were Serah.
By the time Phoenix lit, she had run out of ways to keep busy in the field and returned to the guard station. She’d gotten around to treating her wounds, though she still had blood on her uniform and a few leaves in her hair. Her pistol, which she couldn’t seem to keep holstered, was tapping nervously against the side of her leg.
Lieutenant Amodar found her lurking in the dispatch center, listening in on the patrols. “You’ve got a hell of a way of taking the day off, Farron,” he said, jabbing at her shoulder.
Lightning hadn’t thought about that in a while, either. “Can’t exactly relax right now, sir.”
“Quite a night, wasn’t it?” He let out a heavy breath. “Don’t worry, Farron; everybody here is going to do their best to get her back - whether you’re looking over their shoulders or not. But you should be prepared, in case this doesn’t get solved in the next couple hours.”
She looked at him, and registered for the first time that he probably hadn’t slept either. The man’s typical warm smile didn’t quite extend to his eyes, which had faint rings under them, and he hunched forward just enough to put shadows across his whole face. “You know something, Lieutenant?” she asked, frowning.
Amodar nodded, folding his arms. “That description you gave us, of the woman you saw? Turns out, PSICOM’s had an alert out for someone matching it, something to do with that business at Euride.” He hesitated. “They’re saying she’s a Pulse l’Cie.”
Lightning felt as if a ghost had passed through her. “L’Cie,” she repeated. This whole thing was feeling more and more like a bad dream. Or a really elaborate joke. “What would a Pulse l’Cie want with Serah?”
“Tell you what: When we catch her, we’ll ask.” Amodar shrugged, drawing himself up. “Point is, we’re on top of it. Say what you want about those PSICOM fellas, but they’re thorough. If they’re on the case, they’ll find this girl. And just in case they don’t find her quick enough, we’re on the case too.” He plucked Lightning’s pistol out of her hand, and she flinched at how bad her reflexes had become. “Go home, Farron. You’ve done what you could, and you’re no good to your sister if you can’t even stand up straight. I promise, you’ll know as soon as we find anything.”
With a meaningful look, he offered the weapon back to her. Sighing, Lightning took it and snapped it back into her holster. “Sir.”
It was full dawn by the time she stumbled back to the house. She half-hoped to find Serah there, that she’d managed to get away on her own and would be halfway through the breakfast they prepared every year.
She wasn’t. The house was just as deserted as Lightning had left it. Lately she’d been getting annoyed at finding an empty house, as that meant Serah was probably off somewhere hanging out with her wannabe-gangster boyfriend. Now, her mind drifted back to the day she and Serah had returned from the hospital, after learning their mother would never come home.
Laying on the dining table was a simple white box, half-tied with a gold and violet ribbon. It had to be from Serah, and she seemed to have gotten halfway through wrapping it before abandoning the task.
Almost timidly, Lightning pulled the ribbon off and slid open the box. Inside, sitting on a sheet of gold wrapping paper, was a curved switchblade knife.
She picked up the weapon, flipped open the blade and stared at it for a long moment. Then she flipped it in her hand, testing the grip and its balance. After another moment, she closed it, snapping it onto her utility belt next to her pistol.
Then she went to get her gunblade.
So naturally all my fanfic seems to focus on adventure games. I've gotten reasonably good at writing around the battle (Sidelines kind of turned into an exercise in how many of FFVIII's boss battles I can short-circuit), but with Covenant I seem to have gotten myself into a fic where most of the pivotal plot points in the first half are fight scenes. Even better, I've planned for ages that the next chapter of Moonlight would be the biggest fight scene I've ever written. Go figure.
All of which is to say, here's Chapter 2. Still rated PG-13 for...let's say fighting.
The commotion had started just after midnight, as the revelers were making their way home. There was no alert, just shouts in the distance and then a series of rapid pops, off in the direction of the old Pulse Vestige. Most of the civilians paid the noises little heed, probably taking them for more fireworks and shrugging it off when they couldn’t see any starbursts in the sky.
But the festival had ended nearly half an hour earlier, and Lightning knew gunfire when she heard it.
Technically, Lightning been off-duty since midway through the fireworks festival. Lieutenant Amodar had taken over her shift, told her to take the rest of the night off. He’d also told her to keep her nose out of whatever was going on with the Vestige. “Nothing good will come of it. Nothing but grief.”
But her house was off in that direction anyway.
The townsfolk she passed on the road got increasingly unsettled by the distant commotion. The sight of a Guardian Corps sergeant running by probably wasn’t helping, so Lightning tried to keep herself to a reasonably casual-looking jog. She also noticed that the PSICOM troops appeared to have vanished, just as she was getting used to seeing them lurking on every corner. She took it as another clue about who was behind all the shooting, one she didn’t really need.
She reached the bend in the road that led down to her house, and the other beachside residences, but didn’t follow it. The path leading off toward the Vestige was narrower and more dimly lit, cutting through the woods on the outskirts of town, so Lightning slowed her pace a bit. There was still no sign of PSICOM, and as she neared the far side of the trees, a high-pitched wail rose in the distance and the gunfire stopped as well.
The Vestige stood on an island across a shallow bay, connected to the city by a long footbridge. Given what the Lieutenant had told her, about PSICOM nosing around in the ruins, she’d expected soldiers to have the whole bridge barricaded. She could demand some answers, they’d tell her to move along, and based on how rude they were she could gauge how serious the situation was.
Only the creatures on the bridge weren’t PSICOM. Their shapes were just human enough that they couldn’t be monsters, but they couldn’t be mistaken for people: Their proportions were all wrong, their forms encrusted with masses of black crystal, and they moved with the jerking gait of marionettes. On each of their chests was a perfect black circle with an eerie red glow in the center, pulsing like a sort of heartbeat.
Lightning stopped in her tracks at the edge of the treeline, catching her breath in surprise. The nearest of the things was just at the edge of the bridge, not five meters away - and it looked even closer, standing two or three heads taller than she did.
It was around then that Lightning remembered she didn’t have her gunblade. Her assignment had been guard duty in the middle of Bodhum, watching to make sure nobody’s ex-boyfriend got out of line and no kids strayed too close to the fireworks, so her gear amounted to a tiny AMP pistol and her grav-con unit. She drew the former, hoping the things would go down easy.
As it happened, the creature shambled right by, passing within arm’s reach without giving any sign of seeing her. Lightning stayed stalk-still for another minute, as three more of the things lurched past her, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
Letting them get a respectable distance away, she pulled out her earpiece, keying in the secure channel for her regiment’s headquarters. “Base, this is Farron. Security breach in the Vestige District. Witnessed multiple monsters in Shoreside, heading inland.”
“Copy, Sergeant,” replied the voice of one of the base’s dispatch officers. “We’ve got reports of fighting in that area, but PSICOM’s got a standing directive to stay clear.”
“Well, I don’t see PSICOM - just monsters,” Lightning replied. “Get a team out here before one of them threatens the town. And bring the big guns.”
“Understood.”
“Out.” Lightning switched off her radio and tried to decide whether to track the creatures or head back to her house, get her gunblade and then try to catch up. But then she spotted a piece of pale fabric had caught on the underbrush, near the edge of the clearing. Although she couldn’t see it too clearly in the pale light from the bridge lamps, she had a bad feeling in her gut even before she picked it up.
The garment was a thin pink sweeper, just like the one Serah always wore. Only this one had been ripped nearly to shreds.
Dropping it, Lightning pulled out her flashlight. There was no blood, either on the clothes or the ground, but the area was scattered with shell casings from military-issue machine guns. Lightning looked back at the bridge leading out toward the Vestige, and this time noticed the bullet holes and blasted earth from a thermal grenade near the edge of the walkway.
Then she heard the wailing noise again, off in the direction those inhuman creatures had gone.
Whatever was going on, those things were involved, and Serah along with them, so chasing the sound wasn’t just an option anymore. Pistol in hand, Lightning headed back into the wood.
The four shamblers that had passed her earlier were making better time than she would have guessed, crashing through the woods as though they couldn’t see the trees until they were bouncing off of one. Still, they were following a decent approximation of a straight line, and Lightning guessed they had to know where they were going somehow. She passed them by, striking ahead toward the inland ridge that she could only guess was their destination.
This area should be deserted after dark; there was a hiking trail that ran along the Shoreside Peaks, but it wasn’t lit and most campers would have chosen a site with a better view of the fireworks. But the farther Lightning went, the more sure she was that she could hear something up ahead - heavy footsteps, not unlike those of the shamblers she’d left behind, and a strange lowing sound that sounded halfway between mechanical and alive.
Shortly after she hit the trail, she saw the first PSICOM troops - three of them, lying amid a circle of pulverized trees, their bodies not looking much better. Lightning checked them for pulses more out of procedure than any expectation of survivors inside the smashed combat suits, and she wasn’t surprised. There was a plain trail of destruction now, and it led her uphill.
After several more dead PSICOM soldiers and a few fallen shamblers, the path led her out above the treeline, to a series of hanging bridges that linked the series of ever more impressive lookout sites built onto the peaks. The noises were so close now that Lightning had to be nearly on top of their source, though she was beginning to realize that the sounds were carrying an unnatural distance as well.
The first lookout site looked like a stampede had passed through it, but she didn’t see any signs of fighting. But she did see one of the shamblers trying to make its way across the bridge to the second peak. And she saw a girl’s figure, pale hair illuminated by Eden’s light, standing on the peak and looking trapped.
“Serah!” she called, charging forward onto the bridge.
“Lightning!” Her sister gasped out the word; her voice carried equal parts exhaustion and terror.
“Hold on!” she shouted back, trying not to sound worried herself.
The shambler was about halfway across the bridge, and hadn’t reacted to her at all. Lightning did her best to close the distance, but its footsteps made the bridge all but impossible to navigate, so she got as close as she could, snapped her fingers, and leapt forward as soon as she felt the grav-con field take hold. Forward became down, and she had just enough time to orient her boots before they slammed into the ghoul’s midsection. The impact nearly knocked it over, but one of its clawlike hands caught the bridge’s suspension chain - dumb luck, she thought, and it started floundering around to face its new attacker. While was trying to right itself, Lightning leveled her pistol at the thing, firing two shots before her feet even landed on the bridge. The shambler flailed some more, but tipped over the side of the bridge and fell.
Which would have been great, if it hadn’t flipped the bridge half-over as it went. Lightning reached out for the chain, the shambler lashed out at her, and neither of them quite hit their mark.
Since she’d just drained the charge on her grav-con unit, it was a pretty hard fall. She landed hard on her side and rolled off another drop, coming to rest in a mess of roots and feeling thankful that she hadn’t felt anything break. She’d held on to her pistol, too.
She could see Serah above her, leaning over the peak’s rim. Watching her sister take a fall like that couldn’t have done her night any favors, and Lightning resolved to make the fight look easier from here on out.
The shambler seemed to have landed even harder than she had, crashing onto a boulder that jutted out from the ridge. Its right side seemed to have a new dent in it, and one of its legs had gained an extra joint - but none of that stopped it from getting up, and immediately starting back up the ridge.
“Hey!” Lightning shouted, bringing up her pistol and shooting the thing again. It was set for a heavy stun blast, one shot of which would have thrown a grown man off his feet and left him unconscious the rest of the night. The creature just shuddered a bit and stumbled in its tracks. But she did get its attention, as it turned around to face her.
Adjusting the pistol to its maximum setting, she closed the distance with the fastest sprint she could manage across the rough uphill terrain and delivered three quick kinetic shots straight into the creature’s neck, then snapped her grav-con field back on and used every bit of the small charge it had regenerated to drive the fist of her free hand right into its face. The thing’s head snapped backward, black fluid started to ooze out of a break in the crystals encrusting its neck, and it fell twitching to the ground and didn’t get up.
She looked up, trying to work out the best way to the peak -
“Look out!”
- and saw Serah pointing at something behind her. Lightning spun around and spotted two more shamblers crashing through the trees, heading straight at her. She fired two quick shots, catching one of them in the head and one in that glowing orb on its chest. That seemed to slow them down, at least, so she turned and made a run for the peak. But for the inelegance of their motion, the things’ overgrown limbs were well-suited for climbing, and the shamblers seemed to be making better time than she was, especially as she got back above the treeline and the number of footholds dropped significantly.
“Serah-” she called, glancing up toward the ridge. She’d meant to tell her sister to run, that she’d catch up on the other side of the ridge, but Serah wasn’t looking at her anymore. Lightning could see two more of the shamblers silhouetted against the sky, lurching up onto the peak and flanking her sister. The red glow from their chests cast Serah in a hellish light.
Catching her breath, Lightning leveled her pistol and fired. She aimed low and wide to avoid hitting Serah, and she was too far away to have much hope of striking the creatures anyway. It was an act of desperation, and she was stunned when it actually worked: Both shamblers turned to face her and started back down the ridge. Lightning wasn’t crazy about the four-to-one odds, but she preferred them to two against Serah.
Suddenly, another woman was on the peak with Serah, grabbing her arm. Lightning only saw her for a second, a shadow against the sky, but she caught wild dark hair, some kind of flowing sash, and a double-bladed spear. Serah yelped, and then both of them vanished behind the ridge.
“Serah!” Lightning yelled, but she barely got the word out before something sharp hit her from behind. She fell face-first onto the slope, rolled over and fired at the shambler standing over her. It caught one shot in its shoulder, another on its hand, a third in its chest, and then Lightning was scrambling to her feet, trying to sprint towards the peak. But the second shambler caught her in the leg; its hand felt like sandpaper and its fingertips sliced straight through her skin. She kicked, knocking it off balance, shooting the first one in the head once more to make sure it stayed down and then unloaded on its partner. It got one more swipe in at her shoulder, landing right on the pauldron and leaving a nasty scratch across her Sergeant’s bars, before she worked out that the pulsing orb in its chest was a weak spot and sent it crashing down the slope as well. With a quick glance at her leg, which was bleeding more than she would have liked, she gritted her teeth and charged up toward the peak.
The last two shamblers were kicking up a small avalanche on their way down to her. Lightning dodged a couple particularly large rocks, but put too much weight on her injured leg and faltered. Before she could snap on her grav-con unit, which had built up nearly a quarter charge by now, the ghouls were on her, one slashing across her side and the other opting opting for the full-on body slam. Lightning ducked, and most of the creature’s weight flipped right over her, but it still knocked her to her knees.
And once the things were on top of her, it was impossible to find her footing. Their limbs were everywhere she tried to find purchase, razor fingers cutting at her arms and testing the slash resistance of her uniform. She fired back, but the damn things’ lurching made it impossible to aim.
Finally, she caught one of their legs with a well-placed kick, and gained herself half a second’s freedom. Rolling over onto her knees, she snapped on her grav-con unit and jumped, shooting five meters straight into the air. Picking one of the shamblers, she delivered three shots into its head and chest. Then, just as she felt her unit’s charge running out, she reversed the gravity field and sent herself crashing down onto the second one, driving her feet into its chest with a satisfying crunch. The first one looked to be recovering, so she shot it once more, right in the orb, and then bashed it on the head for good measure. Then she left their bodies behind and started back uphill.
The observation deck was empty, with no sign of a struggle and no trace of Serah. There was nobody on the bridge, or on the peaks in either direction, and she saw no one on the far side of the ridge. She called Serah’s name, but the only thing she heard back were the thumping footsteps of more shamblers.
A moment later, three of them emerged from the treeline, lurching up toward her. “I don’t have time for this,” she hissed, leveling her pistol once more.
Just as she was about to charge down at the things, she heard another, much more welcome noise. Looking back towards the city, she saw two of her garrison’s velocycles swooping in, raking the creatures with gunfire. The damn things went down almost too easily, after what they’d put her through.
Lightning raised her hand, but one was already circling in to a hover landing on the observation deck. “Sergeant!” called the pilot, a tall blond-haired man with corporal’s bars; his parade uniform said that he hadn’t planned to be on patrol today.
“Dacks!” She stopped herself from asking what took him so long. “Did you see anyone else in the area on your way in?”
He shook his head. “Just a few more of those monsters you called in. What are those things, anyway?”
Lightning had completely lost track of that question, and she shook it out of her head now. “There’s no time. We need to sweep these woods, right away!”
“Don’t worry, Sergeant, we’re taking care of it.” Dacks glanced at her arms and leg, which Lightning had forgotten were still bleeding. “Maybe you should-”
“No, listen to me!” She grabbed his arm, leaving a bloody handprint on his uniform sleeve. “It’s my sister. Someone took her.”
-
She didn’t leave the woods until they’d swept the entire district. A thermal sweep established pretty quickly that there were no humans left in the wood, after which they’d checked on foot for bodies. They’d found quite a few - mostly PSICOM, a few unlucky campers - but none of them were Serah.
By the time Phoenix lit, she had run out of ways to keep busy in the field and returned to the guard station. She’d gotten around to treating her wounds, though she still had blood on her uniform and a few leaves in her hair. Her pistol, which she couldn’t seem to keep holstered, was tapping nervously against the side of her leg.
Lieutenant Amodar found her lurking in the dispatch center, listening in on the patrols. “You’ve got a hell of a way of taking the day off, Farron,” he said, jabbing at her shoulder.
Lightning hadn’t thought about that in a while, either. “Can’t exactly relax right now, sir.”
“Quite a night, wasn’t it?” He let out a heavy breath. “Don’t worry, Farron; everybody here is going to do their best to get her back - whether you’re looking over their shoulders or not. But you should be prepared, in case this doesn’t get solved in the next couple hours.”
She looked at him, and registered for the first time that he probably hadn’t slept either. The man’s typical warm smile didn’t quite extend to his eyes, which had faint rings under them, and he hunched forward just enough to put shadows across his whole face. “You know something, Lieutenant?” she asked, frowning.
Amodar nodded, folding his arms. “That description you gave us, of the woman you saw? Turns out, PSICOM’s had an alert out for someone matching it, something to do with that business at Euride.” He hesitated. “They’re saying she’s a Pulse l’Cie.”
Lightning felt as if a ghost had passed through her. “L’Cie,” she repeated. This whole thing was feeling more and more like a bad dream. Or a really elaborate joke. “What would a Pulse l’Cie want with Serah?”
“Tell you what: When we catch her, we’ll ask.” Amodar shrugged, drawing himself up. “Point is, we’re on top of it. Say what you want about those PSICOM fellas, but they’re thorough. If they’re on the case, they’ll find this girl. And just in case they don’t find her quick enough, we’re on the case too.” He plucked Lightning’s pistol out of her hand, and she flinched at how bad her reflexes had become. “Go home, Farron. You’ve done what you could, and you’re no good to your sister if you can’t even stand up straight. I promise, you’ll know as soon as we find anything.”
With a meaningful look, he offered the weapon back to her. Sighing, Lightning took it and snapped it back into her holster. “Sir.”
It was full dawn by the time she stumbled back to the house. She half-hoped to find Serah there, that she’d managed to get away on her own and would be halfway through the breakfast they prepared every year.
She wasn’t. The house was just as deserted as Lightning had left it. Lately she’d been getting annoyed at finding an empty house, as that meant Serah was probably off somewhere hanging out with her wannabe-gangster boyfriend. Now, her mind drifted back to the day she and Serah had returned from the hospital, after learning their mother would never come home.
Laying on the dining table was a simple white box, half-tied with a gold and violet ribbon. It had to be from Serah, and she seemed to have gotten halfway through wrapping it before abandoning the task.
Almost timidly, Lightning pulled the ribbon off and slid open the box. Inside, sitting on a sheet of gold wrapping paper, was a curved switchblade knife.
She picked up the weapon, flipped open the blade and stared at it for a long moment. Then she flipped it in her hand, testing the grip and its balance. After another moment, she closed it, snapping it onto her utility belt next to her pistol.
Then she went to get her gunblade.