Fic: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe? Chapter 6/? Snow/Light

[frkmgnt1]

Title: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?
Author: frkmgnt1 
Rating: PG-13 or T (Pick your poison.  No graphic anything as of Chapter 6)
Pairing: Snow/Lightning, Snow/Serah
Chapter 6: Certain Half Deserted Streets ~5,900 words
Word Count so far ~38,400
Description: Snow has something he needs to say.  Lightning cannot hear it.
Genre: Angst angst and more angst.  Romance (Oh my god!  I wrote Romance.  WTF?)

This started life as a one shot, and perhaps should have stayed that way.  But the characters nagged me to continue the story and SOMEONE challenged me to write a story without a doomed Snow/Lightning pairing.  That's not easy to do and I'm not sure I'll pull it off.  But I'm sure as hell going to try it!



"Winter is not a season, it's an occupation."
-Sinclair Lewis

Certain Half Deserted Streets

Mah'Habara is far more pleasant now than it was when they were all running for their lives. The caverns lack the urgency and pervasive doom that they held last year. The choice to follow the new path rather than the familiar one was foolish and impulsive. Lightning considered turning back several times before saying a silent 'Screw it' and continuing onward. She is no coward, and there's nothing in these caverns she can't handle.

The new tunnel turns out to be a great choice, much to her surprise. The fresh carved cavern is free of not only the debris of destroyed machines that litters the well-worn path, but the still active self-repairing machines of war that are an animated testament to Pulse's rich and war-filled history. Not having to battle the machines is a pleasant surprise. The Pulse machines are dogged and difficult enemies. Considering the throbbing in her broken hand and the aching in her body from her impromptu smash against the side of Taejin's Tower, Lightning isn't sure she'd be up to the task of taking them on.

Of course, the new tunnel has its own hazards as well. There are loose rocks on both floor and ceiling, fresh sinkholes that almost break her ankle a few times, and a few scattered nests of Ceratosaurs that she figures most likely sought shelter from the terrible weather in the warm caverns. All of these things make the journey more interesting and difficult than a simple walk in a park, but Lightning can't seem to mind any of it.

Besides, walks in parks have never been her bag. Give her a good spar over a stroll any day.

Sure, the journey down the new tunnel tacks an extra day or so onto her journey, but being inside after close to a full day in the harsh weather feels fantastic. The cold that invaded the core of her body has dissipated. The skin on her fingers has regained its elasticity. The swelling is gone, and the coloration is once again normal. Her hands feel tip top! Not to mention how thrilled she is that she managed to avoid developing any blisters from the frostbite on her feet.

All in all, she feels better than she has in months.

Moving on agrees with her, it seems. Having a plan (vague though it may be) improves her general outlook on life by two hundred percent. Each step forward lightens the burden in her heart, gives her something to think about other than the four walls of her rotting cage, and the big blond holding the other end of her leash.

Not going there.

A shift in her surroundings pulls her from her quiet thoughts. It's a small thing, so small that it takes a moment to sink in.

She's headed upwards.

Lightning feels the change in the incline of the path as a small burn in her calves and a stretch in the soles of her feet. She's heading back towards the surface and is not sure if she feels relief or disappointment; perhaps it's a bit of both in equal measure. The end of this path marks the beginning of the next leg of her journey, true, but it also means she'll be back out in miserable, freezing weather.

Her thawed toes ache and weep in anticipation of refreezing.

She continues walking up the slight incline until it grows steep. She's doubled over at the waist in an effort to keep her center of gravity stable. When the path shifts to an even steeper angle, she drops to all fours to haul her way up the slope. Her right hand still hurts where she fractured it and she finds herself favoring it. The few days of relative rest haven't helped as much as they should have. She guesses that she did a good deal of damage to her hand in her exhausting ascent of, and terrifying descent from Taejin's Tower. Based on the constancy of the pain, she guesses that her hand will require some corrective surgery at some point.

She misses the days when a small spell would have knit the bone in minutes. She doesn't miss being a l'Cie per se, but at times misses the convenience that the power and magic afforded her. She sometimes misses being something other (more?) than human, and no longer subject to all the frailties thereof.

There are no words for just how screwed up she is these days.

Reaching the top of the incline is more trouble than it should be. It leaves the knees of her pants dirty and worn, and her right hand aching and bruised. The air at the top is half the temperature of the rest of the cavern and she shivers and curses. She should be happy that she's near the end of the tunnels.

She's really not.

Being unhappy is not unusual for her these days, so she dismisses her feelings and concentrates on what matters: surviving. She pulls off her pack and pulls out her cold weather gear, dresses quickly. She pulls on the sweater and poncho, slides on her climbing gloves for now. She'll put the mittens over them when she's outside. She starts moving again.

"It's all about layers," she says to the empty cavern. It whispers back an echo and she smiles. Echoes have been her only companions for the past few days. She's found herself speaking aloud to nothing just to experience something like a conversation.

When did this happen? Lightning never fancied herself a social creature. She was always happiest on her own, doing her own thing. Being alone never translated into being lonely for her as it did for some people. She enjoyed the peace and solace she found by herself. She never considered herself antisocial; just a solitary person. An island unto herself.

Now she finds herself craving the laughter she shared with Fang, missing the quiet conversations with Sazh, longing for the mutual affection she shared with Hope, and yearning for the comforting evenings on watch with Snow, getting to know one another by sharing memories of their one common link.

/Can I come in?/

Snow. It seems like he is the last station for all her trains of thought these days.

She stomps on the budding sentiment before it has a chance to germinate within her. There are important things to focus on now. She has a few days with herself, testing her own mettle and skills against the dangers of Gran Pulse. Once upon a time, such a challenge would have been more than exciting. It would have been enthralling and irresistible. She misses the days when things were simple.

She stops moving, brain tripping over her last thought.

Did she just think of the days when the fal'Cie kept them as pets, held humanity's existence in the palms of their metaphorical hands, murdered at will and ruined everyone's lives as 'simple times?'

Why yes; yes she did. And what's worse is that she meant it.

She sneers and moves faster. She is so damaged it's ridiculous. This is why she never delves into the darkest reaches of her heart and mind! It's like kicking over large stones: something slimy and nasty is always living underneath.

She supposes that she knew she missed being a soldier on some basic level. Having orders to follow and a chain of command kept things simple. Right and wrong were dead issues. There were orders to follow, and targets to destroy, and that was it. It never occurred to her to question the legitimacy of her orders, or the motivations of her commanding officers. She was a cog in a larger machine, and that machine only worked if all the parts did their jobs. She appreciated the simplicity of the overall design, and was happy for her place in it.

Then the Pulse Vestige appeared, the Purge happened and Lightning's entire world crumbled around her. For the first time since enlisting, she questioned her beliefs. She questioned her orders.

She questioned her entire life: everything she ever did, knew, thought, or was. She was forced to confront the entire hierarchy of her life and then tear it down to its foundations. It was as terrifying as it was satisfying.

After the fall of Cocoon and the end of the war, things normalized somewhat. There was total chaos followed by an uncomfortable and tenuous calm. No one quite believed that things were over-least of all Lightning. But days passed and life resumed. Days turned to weeks then months and there were no more apocalyptic threats; just the day to day dealings of life.

No more was every conversation about surviving the next battle. Soon conversations turned to routine things-food and shelter, constructing and rebuilding; grieving, mourning and moving on. She took part in discussions even as she tried to figure out where she fit into this brave new world. She was lost and flailing in this normality. She was alone where her friends all had families-Hope had his father, Sazh his son, and Serah and Snow had each other and the family they would make. She was an outsider in her own life and the only other family she ever knew-the Guardian Corps-no longer existed. She was a woman with no family and a soldier with no army.

But that didn't stop her from trying. Lightning is many things, but she's no quitter.

Every day she would try, and every day she felt as if she were trying to shove square pegs into round holes. She contorted herself to make it work, bent and twisted until she was tied up into knots. She never fit, and it never fit her. She knew it but ignored it; figured she could fake it until she made it.

Then Snow showed up on her doorstep and upended her entire world for the second time in a year. He nuked her entire world view with a look and a stolen kiss.

She rubs at the growing ache in her head. She hates thinking about these things. Thinking about the past never did her a damn bit of good. Thinking about Snow and the bandana secreted into her bag is forbidden.

He is not now, nor will he ever be, hers to want.

So yes, things were simpler then. Life was easier when she had a clear, distilled purpose. Life was easier when her sister was innocent, Hope had a mother, and she hated Snow. Life was simpler before she ever heard the names Fang and Vanille. It was easier to believe that Gran Pulse was some sort of nightmare hell world full of monsters and demons.

It was easy, but she wouldn't go back. She wouldn't trade the unhappy present and the uncertain future for that simple past. To even indulge the idea is a blasphemy against all those who suffered and died to buy their freedom.

It's an insult to her lost friends.

Thinking of Fang and Vanille makes her ache. She's not sure how two people she knew for such a brief time could come to mean so much; how she can miss them in her day to day life when they were never actually part of it. Their time together was brief and unusual. She shouldn't miss them, but she does. Every day. She thinks of them and knows that she is selfish for wanting them here. She knows that they too would be outcasts in this world. If they were here, she would have in them kindred souls. She might once again have a place...

The cold yanks her from her thoughts and she's happy to be rid of them. She needs to stop lingering in the darkest corners of her mind and soul. She fears that one day she will not return from them.

She feels the wind before she hears it roaring. It's got the keen edge of her Edged Carbine, and the bite of a Jabberwocky. She burrows deeper into her poncho and contemplates putting on a third pair of socks before deciding that it would be only be a waste of dry clothing. She calculates the distance across the Archylte Steppe and decides that she's going to need all the warm, dry clothes she can get.

Coming out of the dark caverns is a blinding experience. The storm, it seems, has passed and the sun is out in all its glory. The effect of the play of light over the white world is breathtaking.

And eye scorching.

Lightning squints at the intense brightness that is a combination of radiant and reflected light. The entire landscape glows like the sun. The world sparkles and glows brighter than the clearest diamond ever polished. The virgin landscape looks pure and holy. Looks can be deceiving, she knows.

She blinks and her viewpoint shifts. The world no longer looks like heavenly bodies or gemstones to her eyes.

It looks like crystal. She feels vaguely nauseated by the thought.

She remembers landing on Lake Bresha after defeating Anima. Everything looked like the clearest ice without the accompanying cold. It was undeniably beautiful, despite her complete lack of interest in admiring landscapes. The crystal was an end of life-all the life in the lake, all the life in her sister. All the life in herself. She ignored the sparkling wonder and moved onward then as she must do now. She moved onward and discovered her sister-perfect and eternal in her crystal casket.

She needs to stop thinking about the past. She can feel the panic and depression that nearly consumed her that day resurfacing. That was then, this is now.

That was crystal, and this is ice.

She tries to focus on the positives. Serah is alive and happy. The storm is over. She is moving on to start a new life. She lets the last of her unease disappear into the sunlight around her, and just lets herself be pleased at the turn in her luck. Maybe the rest of her journey will be pleasant...

She thinks about that for a moment.

Optimism is for idiots.

She smacks herself in the head before her thoughts drift to the most offensive optimist she knows; before she can think of his smirking mouth and blue eyes...

Enough! She sets off at a steady pace, mindful of the blanket of snow and what dangers might lurk beneath it. She refuses to fall prey to optimism and all its ironic foibles.

Life has a tendency to bite you in the ass when you least expect it.

A gust of wind blows her hair, slices through her clothes straight to her bones, and sends pellets of ice and misted snow into her face and open eyes. She holds her arms up to shield herself from the icy debris. The wind worms its way under the cuffs of her sleeves, into her finger holes in her gloves to settle in the cup of her palms. She clenches her fists against the wet cold and realizes that she forgot to put her mittens over her gloves. She curses, sputters and digs for her mittens.

"Stupid." She yanks the mittens from the top of her pack, fumbles with them for a moment. Her fingers are already clumsy with cold, the skin contracting and nail beds turning a hideous shade of blue. She shakes out the mittens and slips them over her gloves, hopes that she does it quickly enough. She's made a critical error in allowing the ice into her gloves. The whole point of mittens over gloves is to conserve body heat and keep her hands warmer; try to keep her fingers from succumbing to frostbite. It's a temporary sacrifice of dexterity weighed against the long term benefits. The warmer she can stay, the less likely it is that her body will starve her appendages of blood flow and kill them off.

She stares at her now covered hands, clenching and unclenching fists, wiggling and shaking fingers. She needs her hands. She is a warrior. Loss of her fingers means losing her ability to use her gun. Losing her hands means losing her sword.

Losing her hands means losing the only thing she's good at; the only thing she's good for.

She is an idiot.

"Too careless Lightning," she scolds, proud that she keeps the tremble from her voice. "Too distracted." She slipped into dark memories and made a mistake or she saw the bright sun and the clear skies and got sloppy. Either or, take your pick. The result is the same: she got cocky in the absence of one enemy, and left herself vulnerable to the more dangerous and lethal one. The cold.

She feels the ice melting against her palms and wonders if she should turn back into the cavern to try and dry out and warm up. She looks up, sees that the sun is on its ascent. She has a full day of sunlight now. She needs to walk, find a safe place and set up a camp before nightfall. Sunset will drop the temperature from dangerous to lethal. She looks around at the Steppe, realizes how exposed she is to the winged predators that hunt the plateau.

"This may have been a big mistake," she tells the air. When the next wind blows, forcing her to touch her chin to her chest and close her eyes, she's pretty sure that she needs to drop the 'may have been' from her assessment. She considers calling for reinforcements now, certain that Sazh will come and get her.

Soon. She needs to get to safety before she calls.

When the wind dies down she scans again, sees the cliffs on the southern border of the Steppe and decides that they are her best bet. They'll provide a natural shield against the wind and cut off an entire angle of approach. Of course, it'll also cut off a line of retreat, but it's a chance she's willing to take to reduce her exposure by half.

The cliffs turn out to be farther away than they look, or maybe it's just slogging through knee deep snow that makes it seem that way. Either way, the sun is directly overhead by the time she reaches the cliffs and each step she takes eats up entirety of her shadow on the snow. Her feet are starting to burn in her boots again, but her hands still feel functional, if cold.

It turns out she was right and the cliff face does shield her from the majority of the wind. Lightning is pleased that her judgment and assessment skills are still sound. The stupidity of her overall decision to slog across the world in the middle of deep winter at the height of a huge storm had her wondering for a moment.

She pulls out the communicator and tries raising Sazh. There's no answer and she swears aloud; loud enough to hear back in Oerba. She presses buttons on the communicator, wondering if she broke it in her travels, or if she's just in an iffy spot for signals. The thing beeps and burbles in her hand, but offers no connection.

/Yelling doesn't fix it. It's called interference./

She shoves the unexpected memory of Fang aside, irritated that the past won't stop haunting her today. Doesn't matter. Keep moving.

Thus resolved, Lightning walks in the shadows of the cliff until the world starts blushing with imminent sunset. The sky is ablaze with shades of red and gold and they reflect off the snowpack to create one of the most devastatingly beautiful sunsets Lightning has ever seen. She stares into the distance and forgets all her problems and worries, her fears and loneliness and just breathes.

The air is cold, but she doesn't feel it. The wind blows ice up her nose, giving her an instant brain freeze. She rubs at the pain but finds it little more than a nuisance. She basks in a false peace that can only be found in beauty. She closes her eyes against the purples of approaching darkness, knows that it is stupid to waste time standing when she should be setting up a camp for herself. She can't seem to care though.

Stupid is becoming a habit it seems. She blames Snow for being a bad influence.

She has memories of nights out on the Archylte Steppe sitting watch with Snow. Gran Pulse was silent under a blanket of stars, Cocoon shining like a spotlight overhead, and she and Snow sat in silence, listening to the chirps of strange insects and smelling the perfume of alien wildflowers. Sometimes they would talk about important things, sometimes meaningless ones. Sometimes there was an undercurrent of pain and fear between them, sometimes it was serenity and hope. But no matter what, there was a shared sense of purpose and calm between them and a deep appreciation for the beauty inherent in the untamed wilds of Gran Pulse.

It is a sad thing that some of her happiest memories are of the worst time of her life. It is a betrayal of everything that matters to her, that she hordes these secret memories like a pirate does with ill-gained treasure.

She hears something on the wind that pulls her from her thoughts. Something more than the calls of animals, or the sound of storming. Something off enough to make her forget her shame and her memories and her secret longings. She cocks her head and listens, curses the wind when it picks up again and drowns out the noise. The warrior in her takes over and she's happy to see her. She moves forward before she forms the thought, waits until the wind dies and stops.

Listens...

Gunfire.

She opens her eyes and frowns. She would recognize the sounds of gunplay anywhere, but she can't figure out what it would be doing out on the Archylte Steppe in the shadow of Mah'Habara. No one lives out here. There are only a few outposts. She supposes someone could be hunting, or repelling an Amphisbaena attack. She hopes no one is stupid enough to try small arms fire on an Adamantoise or one of its cousins.

A loud boom startles her from her thoughts.

That one was heavy artillery: high caliber ammo or a grenade. No one would use that to hunt, and hurling hand grenades or Molotov cocktails at Amphisbaena is pointless and idiotic. All that would do is piss the winged nightmare off and bring its wrath down on the attacker's head and she shudders to think of the stampede it might cause from an Adamantoise. She finds it hard to believe that anyone who settled on the Steppe would be stupid enough to antagonize the largest animals. Adamantoises are herbivores and don't attack unless provoked, and all civilians in the outposts know how the easiest way to avoid Amphisbaena attacks is to stay indoors when they're spotted. The large predators are, as Fang once called them, 'winged death.' But they are also primarily hunters out for their own survival. They don't tear down buildings for prey; they move on and find their meal elsewhere.

Another explosion rattles the world, this one louder and closer. Now that the sky has darkened, Lightning can see the flickering glow indicative of structural fire blazing away on the horizon. Lightning takes a step towards the blaze when a third then fourth explosion rattle everything, one after the next. The snow falls again, hard. She watches it pour and sift down for a second before realization sinks in.

The snow isn't falling...it's collapsing!

She tries to get out of the way. Lightning is fast, but she'll never be faster than gravity, and a pile of snow that's been clinging onto the ledge above her shakes loose and lands on her with the force of an anvil, and buries her beneath a mountain of packed snow and ice.

The first thing she realizes is that she can't breathe. She's freezing, and wet, but her body dismisses those things as unimportant in comparison to the need for oxygen. She tries to gasp but it's like breathing with her head under a blanket. An icy blanket. She thrashes, but finds that she's pinned immobile. She tries to open her eyes but they feel frozen shut.

Memory smacks her with the weight of a sledgehammer.

She's buried alive.

Panic floods through her, followed hard by an adrenaline chaser and she moves every muscle at once, tries to burrow her way upwards, outwards, backwards. Any direction will do as long as she can free herself.

Panic is always an enemy.

Fighting her body's instincts is harder than it should be for her. Her training feels further out of reach than ever right now. She can't focus on anything but the need for freedom and the struggle for survival. She thrashes again and doesn't stop until everything hurts and the world is slipping away from her like she's falling into a dream.

Stop it. You're going to panic yourself right into death.

Obeying to her inner voice is harder than it's ever been, but she does it.

Okay. What do you know?

She knows that she's trapped.

/Buried!/

She knows that she's alive. So, if she's alive, then she's breathing. If she's breathing, then there must be an air pocket. She tells herself that she can survive if she keeps her wits. She reminds herself that panic accelerates respiration, and will use up the air and create more carbon dioxide. She'll die faster unless she calms down.

It all sounds so reasonable. She just can't seem to get her raging heart to buy her mind's rationalizations.

She starts again, testing one limb after the next to see if she can get any give and free one. She starts with her right foot, tries to work it to get it under her, to gain leverage so she can push up and hopefully surface. She feels like she's stuck in cement instead of ice, feels the panic threaten to boil over again. She gives up on that leg for the moment in hopes of maintaining control and tries the other foot. This one moves somewhat, shifts some of the packed snow from around her. The small bit of give elates her, raises her hopes for escape. She keeps moving her foot until her pelvis has some leeway. Then she rocks that and manages to un-stick her torso. She finally starts working her arms in the newly created space. She works them up, wiggles fingers back and forth to shift snow aside.

The whole process takes forever. She's lightheaded by the time her head breaks the surface of the snowpack. She's so cold that she can't even feel it anymore. She would consider that a blessing if it weren't for her very lethal circumstances. Sleep beckons to her to succumb but she fights, knows she needs to get out of this pile of snow or it will be her grave. She pulls and pushes until she's sweating into her soaked, frozen clothing. Or maybe that's ice melting and saturating her. Either way, it's only going to make matters worse. She wriggles free and lands face first on the snow covered ground.

Free.

She's free now but dying by degrees in the full dark of a Gran Pulse night. She's not even shivering though she knows by all rights she should be jittering like some sort of drug addict in withdrawal. It's not good. Not shivering is a very bad sign. She can't remember why right now, but she knows it all the same. She can feel the ice on her eyelashes, weighing them down, making sleep seem like an even more appealing idea. She closes her eyes.

Maybe just a little while...

Explosions and raucous laughter pierce the encroaching fog in her mind. She hears gunfire, the sounds of engines. Something is close to her and getting closer. She may be dying but she isn't dead yet. She needs to find out what is going on. The warrior in her demands it! There are warning bells going off inside her that have nothing to do with her decline and everything to do with an approaching threat.

She peels her eyes open and sees the bright glow on the horizon. It looks like the entire world is on fire. She blinks at it, sees a shadow resolving itself in stark relief to the brightness. It's massive. She blinks again, tries to wipe the ice from her lashes and ends up making the situation worse. She curses at herself, her stupidity and her own failing body.

There's no time for this Lightning. She has this chance-this one chance-to understand what has happened. She has lived through enough cataclysmic moments to know one when approaches.

She stares at the growing shadow through frozen eyes until her brain can place it.

A Havoc Skytank! Her eyes widen. She hasn't seen one of these since the fall of Cocoon. Where the hell did it come from? Who are these people and where did they procure PSICOM weaponry? She spots a few other vehicles following. She hears laughter blended with screams in some horrible symphony. The sounds trail after and around the caravan like a procession and veil follow a bride.

She doesn't know what has happened but she does know it's bad. She's seen enough violence to note its signature on a person. She can smell the smoke and death on the air. Its stink clings to these men. She needs to see what has happened, but moreover, she needs to see where these men are heading. Her warrior instincts shout about the urgency of the knowledge.

She climbs up onto numb hands and knees and tumbles into the snow again. She swears, spits out a mouthful of snow and tries again. She manages to balance the next time and ignore the pain wending its way through her body. She's in big trouble. She ignores the knowledge, dismissing it as obvious and unhelpful, checks her gear then concentrates on crawling forward. Her whole body feels like a frozen sack of potatoes. She moves like she's been shackled to a dead Adamantoise and is now trying to haul the carcass behind her. Breathing is as laborious a task as moving. She pants hard, finds the icy air as painful and numbing in her lungs as ever. She resists the urge to cough, afraid it might send her face first into the snow again. If that happens, she knows she won't ever find the strength to climb up.

Her vision is blurred but she keeps the blob of the moving caravan in her sights. Once they've passed her position, she climbs onto her numb feet, feels needles of agony mix into the encompassing numbness in her body. She pushes the pain aside, pushes thoughts aside and sets her mind toward her task. She can still hear the screams from that caravan, though no longer with her ears. They rattle around in her brain, call up images of Purge and apocalypse, of helpless civilians crushed beneath military boots and machines. Memories of the weak falling before the irresistible might of the strong.

She's seen and caused enough death to know other death-bringers at first sight. Like attracts like, after all.

She follows the caravan on dead legs. Intel and infiltration was never her specialty, but she is a superior soldier, and her time as a l'Cie taught her the finer points of the art of stealth. She follows them northwest for what feels like hours until she catches sight of their base. She ducks behind a snow drift and peers around it for a look.

They've set up a camp in a natural break in the cliff face somewhere north of the entrance to the Mah'Habara caverns. They have a perimeter fence with barbed wire surrounding several bunkers and shoddy buildings, with one sturdy building in the rear that most likely houses their heavy artillery. She spots three gun turrets throughout the camp. They are positioned well but not ideally.

Lightning memorizes the layout and breaks it down in her mind. It's a good set up but not fantastic. It's better than she'd expect most civilians to do, but nowhere near what a properly trained command unit would accomplish.

Amateurs, then. Possibly some grunts with delusions of grandeur.

Screams catch her attention and pull her from her mental calculations. Lightning watches as three men drag a chain gang of prisoners out of the large garage. One man laughs when one falls and delivers a hard kick to the downed prisoner's stomach. She hears the other prisoners' protests and notes with growing rage that all the prisoners are women.

So that's it, eh? The fate of these prisoners flashes through her mind like a bad stop motion film. Everything inside her clenches. She grits her teeth, digs dead fingers into numb palms. She knows what these so called men are planning to do with their prisoners. She knows that the rest of these women's lives will be worse than any death she's ever contemplated.

Unacceptable!

She needs to do something. Her weapon is in her frozen hand before she thinks twice. She tenses, feels a wave of vertigo and fatigue knock her back onto her ass. She curses herself, curses the weather. Curses the snow, and then curses Snow just for good measure.

She can't do anything right now. She probably won't manage to take out any of the sadistic rapist bastards before she's mowed down by the gun turrets. She'll never make it over the barbed wire, and there's too much snow to worm under the fence. Going through is out of the question as she does not have the necessary tools.

If she actually wants to help these women (and kill these sorry excuses for humans) she's going to need help. She needs to mark her position and move her ass. She needs to get word to Sazh to get reinforcements.

She stands up and finds herself on her back staring at the stars.

Reinforcements and medical assistance. She flips over and drags herself through the snow. She can't afford to pass out near an enemy encampment. She can't let herself fall into enemy hands.

Can she? Pieces start clicking together in her head to form an idea...

She shakes her head. Maybe but not yet. Not in such a frozen, weakened condition. She's no good to anyone right now, least of all herself.

She crawls until the snow starts glowing blue with the approaching dawn. She moves until her joints won't bend anymore, until she can't feel her knees, fingers, wrists or nose anymore. She can't catch her breath.

She hears the roar of a motor and curses, crawls as fast as she can-which is admittedly not very fast. She can't believe they've caught her. Can't believe that a bunch of barely trained mongrels managed to detect her and follow her through the damn snow.

The vehicle stops moving and so does she. She's gone as far as she can. She's as good as dead anyway.

Her last thought as she faceplants into the snow is that the joke's on them.

TBC...

For anyone who doesn't believe that Lightning could survive being buried under snow--Click here

Remember--feedback is love.  Things are going to go fast from here to the end.  Drop me a line and share your thoughts...

Chapter 7