FFXIII: ROB's Wheel c84

Pink crystals moved to grab the slipping train, halting the failing. As this happened, the people on the train rapidly began to leave through the doors.

Lightning quickly used her void weapon to open more ways to allow quicker exit.

As people exited, the ex-Military Pinkette stood on the bridge observing how people exited; her gaze moved to moving objects in the distance.

“... more PSICOM on its way!” She exclaimed to the other two pinkettes.

“L-Little busy here!”

Lightning grimaced as she had no means to fight aerial units. Before she could think of anything, streaks of light blasted the fighters off the sky.

Her gaze went to the source. What she saw was no longer surprising to her, as it was Alex who blasted these units with an energy-based bow of some sort.

If he can make weapons like the one she has now, then it should be obvious that he has one or several of them himself.

“While he took down the aerial support ground, regular troops coming over!” 

The ex-soldier commented as she jumped on the tracks and moved to face approaching PSICOM troops.

There were three types of soldiers: close quarters with batons, regular riflemen, and beast handlers.

The beast handlers brought ‘gates’, which they could use to summon genetically altered beasts from storage units.

Less than 30 seconds later, the initial number of around 20 soldiers became close to 40. Half of them were hound-like creatures, which Lightning is quite familiar with.

As someone who was part of operations to deal with beast population control, she knew these creatures… before they became these.

‘Thankfully, there is no Behemoths…’

But then, one big gate opened, and a behemoth crossed over.

“...”

‘Nothing is ever easy with PSICOM…’

After taking a deep breath, she took her stance and waited for an opening move.

Which was hounds and baton-wielding troops.

‘Let’s see if I can use that wind.’ 

Just thinking about the wind made her weapon react as gale winds swelled around the sabre’s edge.

Lightning quickly noticed this fact as she thought of experimenting with this.

As the soldiers got closer, she swung the sabre, which generated wind that sliced the soldier in half.

A clean vertical cut made the soldier erupt like a balloon. For a second, her eyes widened as she understood the general idea of how the weapon worked. She then struck at other gobsmacked soldiers. 

These guys didn’t expect how easily she could kill them.

She began to kill the hound-like creatures, one down, second, third, and fourth.

In just a matter of moments, she slaughtered her way through the entire group.

Leaving her to face the behemoth.

‘Let’s see if I got this right.’

Winds began to swirl and gather around the blade, reaching critical levels. It started to glow in blue and pinkish light. 

Once ready, she swung it down and released a crescent-shaped condensed wind at the towering beast.

Behemoth tried to attack, but rushing towards the attack was a mistake, as the beast ended up being cut in half. 

“...”

As the blood splattered everywhere, Lightning looked at the blade in her hands.

‘Amazing. This weapon will come in handy!’

With a small smile, she swirled it around before walking back to the huge group of people and the two pinkettes who looked tired.

Lightning’s gaze went to the train. What she saw surprised her. It would seem they could create enough crystal to keep the whole thing in place!

That’s some impressive power!

“Are your abilities hereditary, or is it possible to learn them?” The pinkette asked the other two.

“Hmm? Are you interested?” Julis replied with a tired smile.

“...As you can see, our situation doesn’t give me many options.” The ex-soldier looked at the side, seeing firefights happening on lower bridges. The whole Hanging Edge turned into a battle.

Something like this has never happened before in Cocoon. Civil War? Yeah, right. Before this, the last time she fought a legitimate human was when she was a spar in the barracks.

Most of the time, it's beast population control and keeping the law in the city premises—nothing like what she sees now.

“Well, powers like these… they do have a price.” Julis looked at the purple crystals.

“...When they don’t?” Lightning immediately recalled how she spent less time with her little sister just so that she could be strong enough to protect the very sister she basically abandoned.

“Indeed. The stronger you are, the less human you become.” The pink Princess slowly stood up. She felt quite rigid, almost like a ‘living crystal’.

‘It appears overusing my crystal causes me to ‘become’ crystal.’

The ex-soldier girl looked at Julis. What does she mean by less human? 

“...so you had to abandon your humanity to achieve the current power you wield?” 

To her question, Julis sharply nodded before walking over to her.

“On top of that, you will become his.” 

Lightning’s eyes slightly narrowed when she heard that. 

“...I see… so it’s some sort of strange power he can share. In turn, you have to sell yourself to him.” 

“Well, it wasn’t like that initially. Only recently did he get it and turn us into this. By that point, we were already travelling with him.

Especially me, I was with him since childhood.” 

“...Wait…” Lightning realised something as she looked at Julis and then at Inori.

“You two are his girlfriends or something?” She realised that their hair colours were like hers. One by one, she realised something more about this situation!

‘Crafty…’

Or not… because apart from hair colour, they are not similar at all.

“We are.” Julis looked at Inori briefly as the younger girl stood up after resting.

“I see… I haven’t seen anything like this before.” Lightning said with a perplexed frown.

“You haven’t seen anyone have more than one partner?” The Pink Princess asked with a slight amount of disbelief. This place she was in was far too strange.

“Not really. I think there was something like this in the history of Cocoon. But it's not efficient, isn’t it? One man taking care of more than one woman should be taxing.” 

As someone who comes from a society that wants to be as efficient as possible, having more than one partner is confusing to her.

“Well, I tend to agree.” Julis shrugged.

“And you still agreed to this?” This wasn’t the reply Lightning expected.

“...well…”

“Julis can’t keep up with Alex anymore.” Inori chipped in as she walked over and slightly stretched out like a cat. Instead of bones popping, it sounded more like glass cracking.

“Inori!” Julis grabbed Inori and sealed her mouth with her hand.

“What do you mean by that?” Lightning sounded confused.

“...Ugh…” 

After a few moments, she decided to clarify a little bit.

“Alex… well, his body improved beyond normal human standards, and that affects things between man and woman…things…”

It took a few moments to realise, but the ex-soldier girl understood what this girl meant. 

“...Oh…”

“Yes. Even though we became this…” Julis brushed her hand, and purple crystal particles dropped from her palm.

“His hunger is something… well…”

The pink Princess looked at Inori after saying that.

Lightning realised that Inori came into the picture later. Making her look at the younger pinkette curiously.

“...He can make you into ‘Eve’, and you can wield the power to protect who you want.” Out of nowhere, Inori said to the ex-military girl.

“This is why you are here, yes?”

“...”

“I am not selling myself to someone I don’t know enough…” the soldier girl clarified herself on this issue with crossed arms.

“Okay.” 

Lightning didn’t expect such a casual reply from the other girl. It sounded like this girl didn’t believe what the fellow pinkette had just said.

“That would be for the best.” Julis agreed with Lightning, making Inori look at her ‘sister’.

In the end, she didn’t say anything else. Unlike Julis, Inori is far more tuned into her Virus-like nature. Julis still has her ego, which makes sense, but in the end, Inori knows that will change.

“Yes, we should get going. We still have to reach that thing.”

Lightning shelved the discussion for later as she looked around for places where PSICOM could bring that large thing over.

Her eyes ended on massive closed gates in the sky.

She then looked down. She needed to cross quite a distance to get close to that location.

“We should get going.” The ex-soldier girl said to the pair.

“...Hnn…”

“Alright.”

~~~~~~Meanwhile With Alex~~~~~~

The Host of White Dragon Emperor cut the futuristic fighter jet in half and grabbed the pilot by the neck.

‘I wonder if I could do more with the virus abilities… could I potentially drain people of their powers?’

As he pondered that, the Apocalypse Virus surged into the struggling pilot, who slowly became a crystal statue before shattering into millions of pieces.

‘My guess is that you would need to alter the virus in some way for this to happen. While you can control to some extent, it’s not the level where you command what to do and what not to do.’

Albion’s reasoning made sense to Alex, who looked around and realised that the remaining PSICOM fighter had run away.

‘Well, this sucks. Now I need to look for more.’

The Virus Progenitor ended up seeing battle raging in the lower levels. He could see citizens of Bodhum fighting the Elite forces of PSICOM.

There was even that big bulking mountain of muscles, a Behemoth.

‘Oh wow, that brings me back some memories.’

Both good and bad, especially with types of Behemoth and their transformations…

‘From my gameplays, I can say that you can’t turn these into Summons.’ Albion knew what Alex was thinking.

‘I know, but I wonder if I could become a l’Cie and get a brand. Imagine if my virus powers would merge with powers given by gods of this world.’

‘Both of them are crystal-based. Could the brand give me more control over crystals and their abilities?’ Alex pondered as his mind wandered to the possibilities of mixing powers 

‘Hmm, gods use them as a medium to interact with people. What concerns me is if the Gods would realise what you are and copy your virus. They could exterminate humanity even faster.’

“That is possible.”

Alex realised these gods could have stronger wills, overwhelm him, and take over his virus…

Which would result in a literal Apocalypse for the Cocoon and its people.

‘Well, we will see after encountering Anima in the Vestige.’

The Virus Progenitor should test this theory with a Fal’Cie and see it from there.

After coming up with a short-term plan, he swiftly descended to the battleground below.

With a powerful stroke, he embedded his right blade hand into Behemoth’s head, killing it on the spot.

His unexpected arrival stopped the fight for a second as everyone looked at this white armoured being just arriving like that.

“Who the hell are you?”

“That’s the guy the command was speaking about!”

The PSICOM soldiers loudly commented.

Alex turned around and looked at the RIflemen, the beast handlers and the baton soldiers.

“Is this the Hanging Edge? I heard that I can purge guys in this place.” The White Dragon Emperor spoke as he spread his wings. The blue-energy wings began to glow in an ominous light.

“The only one who will get purged is you! Faul l’Cie!” One of the commanders pointed his rifle and shot at the white armoured guy standing on Behemoth’s corpse.

Alex's response to that was raising his hand, and the wings of his Scale Mail glowed.

[HALF DIMENSION!!!]

The bullets and weapons in PSICOM Soldier hands shrunk until they ceased to exist.

“W-What sorcery is this!? He can shrink our weapons!?”

“Quickly summon more beasts!”

The black armoured soldiers panicked while the regular people on the other side looked confused by this ‘support’. 

They didn’t expect to get help from actual ‘l’Cie’. Well, they thought that this guy was one of the branded people.