BREAKING FREE

Author´s Note.

This is my first attempt at writing a Final Fantasy fanfiction. I´ve been a fan of the series for many years now, completely adoring the many games Square Enix have released. But none of them had touched my heart as this one did, the XIIIth. And I know many people consider it to be the worst FF ever, gameplay-wise. But no matter what they all say. This is the first time that the character´s development is well worked and polished (if only, FFX was the closest). And this is the first time EVER that the main character is a female. A strong, determined, completely independent female. Just like XXIst´s century women. So this is my offering at the fantastic tale they´ve provided us. I´ve reviewed and fixed many of the scenes, besides adding some more. Hope you enjoy it!!

As usual, the characters and main plot don't belong to me but to Square Enix. Please don´t sue me!!

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CHAPTER ONE.

It was almost midday in the Yaschas Massif; its high, overwhelming mountains, deep and dangerous, kept the party of six newly branded l´Cie staring in awe at the seemingly endless cliffs and intricate paths, colored by enormous plants and broken trees, imposing and majestic in their wilderness and beauty. The wild nature that sprouted around them was mesmerizing in its variety, in contrast with the low cut and smooth plains of the Archylte Steppe they had just left behind.

Most importantly and fortunately for them, also inhabited by monsters less deadly and aggressive than the ones living in the humongous Steppe they had learned to respect.

On the other hand, the heat of the local temperature, along with the humidity, had already rendered the party of l´Cie sweaty and worn out, making their walk harder along the overgrown plants and trees. A hard task especially for the men of the group, for neither of them was at all used to challenges of the sort, since the three l´Cie were what some groups would call civilians, and had lived on Cocoon´s streets all their lives, pampered and nourished by the Sanctum fal´Cie from the very first day they had been born.

In contraposition, the two Pulse-born girls found the landscape quite alluring to their eyes and hearts, their souls falling into rhythm with their surroundings, feeling at peace with nature, their senses remembering every sound, smell and sight they had learned to adore during their childhood years. After all, this was their homeland, and they hadn´t planted foot on its grass for what felt like... centuries actually.

As for Lightning Farron, the leader of the group by non-spoken agreement, and an ex-sergeant of Cocoon´s military force (Guardian Corps, Bodhum Security Regiment, as she would proudly clarify), in the very scarce times she was able to put aside her anxiety and frustration over her sister´s fate (as well as their own), if only for mere fractions of a second, their escaping to Gran Pulse´s hard and dangerous land was perceived as an exciting experience. She, too, could feel the pull of the nature, just like her Pulse-born friends.

A warm breeze played with the soldier´s pink, wavy tresses and invaded her nostrils with the soothing smell of dampened grass, enhanced by the millions of tiny waterdrops evaporating from early morning´s light rain. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeper, allowing her lungs to be filled with the essence of the earth and her skin to feel the warmth of the sunlight bathing them all. She felt as if she was being renewed. Odd, since she had grown up as a city girl too, just like her male l´Cie peers. All in all, it was hard to admit, especially with the plight they were all in, but Light, as she allowed her friends to call her, wasn´t despising that much their travel along the Gran Pulse treacherous territory. Fang´s territory.

With that last thought lingering at the back of her mind, she took a glance behind her, searching for her new friend, but her azure orbs first found Snow´s tall, well built frame and she cringed; the childish and energetic blond, who always tried to play the hero, annoyed her to no end... a feeling that, slowly but surely, was beginning to shift. Since the very first moment the soldier had heard of the NORA leader, Lightning had mistrusted the man. But lately she had to admit that, throughout their journey, the strawberry blonde had learned her feelings of rejection against the overly optimistic lad had no valid fundament... well, not THAT much, at least. Against her better judgment, she had just recently acknowledged the fact that he truly loved Serah, his fiancée and Lightning´s younger sibling. With every step they took along the way, Snow had demonstrated to the stubborn soldier just how much he believed in her little sister, his (to Lightning´s annoyance every time he spoke it out loud... which, unfortunately for her, was rather frequent) soon-to-be-wife. He had even come to be the ex-sergeant´s support once in a while, inflicting in her soul that flame of hope that kept her feet walking.

She had started to believe in him, to believe they could still save the youngest Farron.

The strawberry haired soldier sighed and tore her gaze away from the man, this time finding Hope´s small frame. The young, silver haired teen whom had clung to her so tightly, and in such a way, that she just couldn´t refuse.

The kid felt the soldier´s stare and his light jade eyes met hers, a warm smile finding its way onto his face. Lightning returned the smile and felt her chest warm. She had felt so relieved to see him step off of that silly vendetta he had against Snow, especially because at some point she had felt responsible for provoking it. But now, she even felt proud to witness the speed at which the teen was growing up, in body and in mind. Not without astonishment, she had come to realize that sometimes his insight and determination had been sharper, better than that of the adults around him, and his newly acquired power, the almighty Alexander, was living proof of his accomplishments.

To her utter disbelief and glee, the young teen seemed, as days passed by, to be blooming stronger, more self-assured, under her guidance. Not to mention he had recently become the strongest magician in their small group.

Lightning had always rejected cadets under her command, even when her superiors had asked her to, ordered her to. She always claimed that she was no big sister for anyone but Serah, and that the only way she could function properly was by herself. So it came as a shock to realize how easily this kid had found his way into her heart, becoming some sort of pupil for her, and she still felt awed at how little resilience she had shown in accepting the role.

Reluctantly, she now looked to her right, finding Sazh with his dark skin and afro hairstyle that had become hideout for the smallest chocobo she had ever seen in her life. Putting behind their first, harsh moments together, back in the Vile Peaks, Lightning acknowledged now she truly respected the man, not only because they both shared the same pain, he having lost his son just as she had lost her sister, but also because he was the oldest of them all, and he had actually taken such role along their travel, protecting the orange haired, small, and always chirpy Vanille and even herself sometimes; as well as looking after the boys, giving them advice and sometimes teasing them, like pals, comrades, brothers interacting among each other, but also as if he was everyone´s parent or older brother. As if he felt responsible for everyone´s well being, not only physically but emotionally too. He sometimes even looked after stubborn and tough-ass Fang, at least as much as she allowed him to.

Even now, at that very moment, he was joking and playing with the chocobo, making the Pulsian sisters play with him and have a laugh, lifting up a bit of the tension in their hearts. He had noticed before anyone else that Fang and Vanille were very apprehensive to get to their homeland, Oerba, afraid of what they would find. After all, they hadn´t been in the place for centuries, and all they knew about it was that there had been a war which destroyed many Pulsian cities, not only Cocoon. Lightning felt her chest tightening in sympathy for the two girls. For her newest friend.

Oerba Yun Fang.

It still impressed her how easily they had fit together as a team. Lightning had always been a good fighter, but she hated teams to no end. She could never fight when she had to worry about someone else, and liked even less to have to rely on other people to achieve her missions. She had learned the hard way people weren´t to be trusted. The proud soldier had always being the lone wolf, and that attitude had only intensified the moment her parents died when she was very young, halfway through her teenage years. She had found herself forced to grow up overnight, find a suitable job, and change her name, determined to protect her little sister, Serah. The strawberry blonde knew, since the very moment she joined the Guardian Corps, that she had developed a huge stand-alone complex, but she didn´t mind. It had worked to her benefit so far.

But with Fang, since the very beginning, it had been another story. Ever since the moment the tall, raven-haired woman had caught up with her in Palumpolum, Cocoon´s most important commercial city, Lightning had found out that fighting together came as an easy accomplishment. Fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Pulsian warrior, the strawberry blonde had felt she didn´t need to be worried at all, and that she could even rely on her partner´s strength and prowess in every single battle.

'Yes', she smiled at the thought. 'My partner'. Fang was strong enough, and determined enough, that even kick-ass Lightning understood she could find support on her. With a single glimpse at her emerald orbs, the soldier could prepare and transmit a whole new battle approach for every enemy, knowing that the warrior would follow suit perfectly, molding to her every step and strike, and even sometimes improving their approach. The strawberry blonde had just recently acknowledge such advantage, the moment both of them had faced the towering Eidolon, Alexander, helping Hope in his fight against it, reaching a level of understanding she now knew had transpired among the two of them far before that day, but without their conscious knowledge.

Lightning was so lost in thought that she was startled, and felt her face blush, the moment azure eyes met emerald ones, realizing now that she was being observed as well, studied rather, by said woman. She smiled at her friend, and saw her smile back, but then noticed the look in the other´s eyes and felt uncomfortable. They were so deep in thought, they looked as if they were trying to pierce her, to read her mind. As if trying to convey concern or something more... something like understanding...? Lightning flushed a bit more at the thought and turned around, breaking eye contact. In spite of trusting the warrior in the battlefield, the soldier still felt weary and angry whenever someone tried to read through her, no matter how comfortable she felt with them.

"WWuaaaahhh!!!!!"

"What??" Abruptly jerked from her reverie, the ex-sergeant immediately turned around in response at Hope´s scream, and felt her blood freeze when she saw a Behemoth King towering over the teen, who was already on the floor. "Hope!!!"

"I thought we had left those monsters behind at the steep!" yelled Fang, guard already raised and standing in front of the silver haired one in order to protect him. Hope rose from the ground immediately, his weapon at the ready as well, running around Fang to face the monster.

"Don´t worry about me! He just got me by surprise!"

"Aaaalright!!" the strawberry blonde rolled her eyes the moment she heard Snow´s battle cry; without having to take a single glance at him, she could easily picture in her mind the ridiculously childish smile plastered on his face, and sighed. "Let´s bring this baby down!!" Had she not been so concerned about Hope, she would´ve protested at his antics.

Having the experience of battle together against countless enemies, the party immediately took their respective positions, completely synchronized, and surrounded the Pulsian monster, displaying a chain of successive attacks, one after the other, to confuse it and render it helpless against the constant hits. But the Behemoth didn´t seemed faced by their tactics at all, and his armor showed little damage in spite of the constant attacking. To make matters worse, the fiend rose on its hind legs, brandishing menacingly a lethal saw on its right claw, and approached Hope with a dark, feral glint in its eyes. To her utter horror, the ex-sergeant knew just what it meant. The fiend had targeted the youngest one, and it wouldn´t be satisfied until it drew out Hope´s blood. She knew they had to act fast, and so, knowing she wasn´t skillful enough as a sentinel, the soldier made a decision.

Displaying her ultimate power, Army of One, she fired and attacked fiercely against the powerful fiend, struggling desperately to take its attention off of the teen, and onto her. It seemed the tactic had worked because, after some hesitation, the Behemoth turned towards her, slashing savagely into the air. Thankfully she was faster, and the deadly strike missed her soft flesh by mere inches.

After making a somersault to get away from the fiend, Lightning stood her ground and addressed the rest of the group, seeking to organize them and synchronize their attacks. "Spread apart!" she ordered them, "that thing can kill any of us with a single blow!! Snow!! I need you to call its attention onto you, so we can attack it effectively!! Sazh! Fire at its right arm! We need its strength diminished!! Hope! Vanille! I need your magic now!! You know what to do!" The two youngest ones of the group nodded at her. She was getting her gunblade ready to support Sazh´s attacks but hesitated a bit, azure eyes searching for light jade ones.

"And please Hope..." the addressed youth turned to her. "Be careful."

The silver haired boy sent a reassuring smile to the tall woman, taking his position next to Vanille. Finally the kids nodded again at the ex-sergeant and got their magic at the ready, the wind around them dancing playfully, making the soldier shiver. While Snow distracted the monster, his sentinel mode reached its peak, as he struggled to take the fiend´s attacks away from the rest of his peers; at the same time Sazh was casting a barrel of powerful fire spells against it.

Seemingly satisfied at their new battle approach, Lightning searched for Fang´s frame and found the tribeswoman waiting for her, weapon and smirk at the ready. The moment their eyes met the warrior nodded with understanding, a huge smirk of anticipation plastered on her face, and without further ado, they both jumped in unison towards the monster, their weapons ravenous for blood. From the front, both women reached for the monster´s neck, but it shifted and blocked Fang´s Kain´s Lance with its left arm. Meanwhile with the right it sent a powerful blow towards Lightning, clashing its saw against the soldier´s gunblade, the Omega Weapon, and remarkably easy sending her hurling towards a wall of rock.

"Light!!" screamed Fang at seeing her partner´s body flying away.

But the soldier was no amateur at all and her honed reflexes responded immediately, just like she had trained them to do, so that she swiveled her body and broke the inertia with her feet, military boots pummeling against the rock. The soldier immediately flexed her legs and transmitted full power on her pull, jumping with all her strength and directing her aim at the monster´s head... just to be caught up in the middle of her dive by a hard body that crashed against hers, sending her straight to the ground.

"Damn!! Sunshine!!" She could hear Fang´s angry and concerned voice approaching fast. When Lightning opened her eyes after the impact, still out of breath, the sight that met her was that of horrible, bloody, sharp teeth reaching out to her neck. One of the canines that usually lurked around a Behemoth King, a Gorgonopsid, had seemingly also found its way from the steppe. She clenched the furred neck and pushed as hard as she could, fighting to avoid the threatening teeth that searched for her pulse, and painfully growling at feeling the razor-like claws embedding themselves in the tender flesh of her sides, until the said wolf-like being was launched away from her in a spurt of its own blood. The warrior had finally reached the soldier and was offering a hand to her, who took it to help herself up, flinching slightly at the sharp pain coming from the fresh wounds on her waist.

"Thanks."  

"Don´t thank me yet. I think the cavalry has just arrived." And she was right, although that meant bad news for their party. Lightning could see both of them surrounded by four more Gorgonopsids, their yellowish teeth threateningly bared and hunger carved in their blazing eyes.

"Snow!" she screamed behind them.

"What?" The struggling blond answered, although barely taking a glance at her, busy as he was with the Behemoth King.

"Protect Hope for us! We have some business to do around here!"

"What?? No!!" was the teen´s unsurprising reply. He had always hated Snow´s protection, even when he had come into terms with the man. Therefore the silver haired boy saw in annoyance how the blond winked at him, and just rolled his eyes in defeat.

"I´m on it, Sis!!"

Lightning huffed at the nickname, but said nothing against it, being too busy already. Her blade was dancing now, cutting some furred flesh in the process. Her adrenaline skyrocketed in the battle, making her forget her recent wounds, and the pressure in her muscles intensified at the thought of the Behemoth King let loose around the kids, while she and her partner were wasting their time with the lesser monsters... that nevertheless could kill them all.

"Aaaaahh!!" She felt the raven haired woman tense beside her and turn around before her senses could register the scream.

"Vanille!!!!"

But the soldier wasn´t prepared for the sight that met them the moment they both turned around. The youngest Pulsian hadn´t screamed because she had been hit. Instead, she saw Hope´s limp form hurled away, apparently wounded, and saw his small body crashing hard against the ground. The monster still reached out for him, seemingly unfazed by Sazh´s desperate attempts to distract it by sending all his weaponry against the fiend. Fear and sheer rage rampaged throughout the soldier´s body, setting her on fire. She completely forgot about the Gorgonopsids she had been battling and ran like a madwoman to meet the struggling group, jumping high towards the monster´s neck with murderous intention in her crystal eyes, Omega Weapon shining furiously against the sunlight, already bathed in blood and searching for more. Lightning was well aware she was no sentinel, her shielding abilities were not as developed as her two sentinel comrades, so she understood she could never protect Hope against the deadly fiend and live to tell the tale. But she was a soldier, trained to be a killer if she needed to, therefore, her only way out was killing the monster in a single stroke. Her life and Hope´s depended on it.

"No!!! Lightning!!!!"

The ex-sergeant didn´t register the Pulsian´s scream, all her senses focused on the monster´s rhythmic pulse on its neck, the only vulnerable part of its powerful body. It seemed as if time had slowed down as she fell forward, reaching out for her objective, and she almost didn´t notice when her body writhed on its own will, barely avoiding by mere millimeters the treacherous saw seeking her flesh, and that almost ended it all. She didn´t register that she was screaming a war cry the moment her gunblade reached down and found its soft mark, spurting red blood that drenched her face, torso and arms. But she did feel the vibration running throughout her body the moment the monster wailed a feral cry. The cry of a wounded, dying animal. As soon as Lightning could breathe again, already recovering the command of her muscles, she removed the blade from the wound and jumped backwards, avoiding again the fiend´s last deadly strikes. After a few spasmodic blows into the air, the monster collapsed onto the ground and stopped breathing, which allowed Lightning´s group to let go the air they didn´t know they were holding.

After a few seconds of catching her breath and recovering command over her thoughts, Lightning blinked and gained her focus again. Immediately rushing towards the teen she cared so much for, she hugged a very impressed and very flushed Hope tightly, not noticing that she was covering his body in blood. "Oh... Light... emh... I was worried about you too..."

The young woman sighed, arms tightly clutching his slim frame, quivering slightly at the emotions that ran throughout her being. Once she recovered from the thousands of ghastly possibilities that had crossed over her mind, she whispered with her usual husky voice, an action that sent inevitable shivers down the teen´s spine. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah." He sighed, sheepishly returning the embrace, basking in the joy their closeness brought to him. "It aches a bit but I think I´ll live."

After finally feeling confident that he was indeed alive, she broke the embrace and hastily searched for wounds around his head and body. Her hands hovered over him making the teen´s blood invade his face and ears with a vengeance, something that seemed to pass unnoticed by the strawberry blonde and therefore didn´t prevent her from finishing her inspection. Her only concern now was to know that he was in one piece. Softly touching his chest, she noticed him flinching, realizing it was probably the area where he had received the fiend´s blow.

The strawberry blonde locked eyes with him, not noticing they were being surrounded by the rest of the group. At the moment, her sole focus seemed to be the well being of her pupil.

"Is it broken?"

Hope slowly shook his head, but then softly and rather hesitantly placed his hands on each side of Lightning´s waist, and this time it was her turn to recoil at the contact. She had completely forgotten the wounds inflicted by the Gorgonopsid.

"Maybe I do have some broken ribs, but they´re definitely not bleeding. On the other hand, you..." he sighed sadly, concerned about her. He called up his magic immediately, and they both were surrounded by a warm and bluish fog.

"Hope, I think you should take care of your bruise first."

The teen smiled. "It´s alright, this will help us both." He raised his eyes to meet hers, and she could see his light jade orbs ablaze in delight as well as something close to pride. "I learned this spell today in the morning, it will heal us both at the same time, you know?"

Her smile, on the other hand, was unmistakably full of pride, as she felt the soothing sensation of magic healing her flesh. Still quivering at the thousands of possibilities that had assaulted her mind, she collected once again the smaller frame in her arms, while the magical cloud did its work on their wounds.

"Awww... they look so cute!" spoke Vanille beside them, hands brought together delightfully, as Sazh and Fang just nodded their agreement, knowing grins plastered on their faces.

"Hey! We made it!! Is everyone ok?"

The tender moment broken, everyone turned around to meet the owner of the voice, but when the ex-sergeant recognized Snow´s cheerful tone from behind her, her whole body tensed, as if an electric current had ran through it, and she turned around slowly. At the sight of his antics and his gleeful attitude, her rage came back in an instant, staining her vision in red hue. Everyone disappeared in her field of vision except one.

Snow had failed in protecting Hope, surely because of his stupid hero act. The problem was that this time she and the teen had almost died for his mistake.

That was it.

It was payback time and she was going to make sure he would suffer under her hand. Her icy blue orbs fixed on her prey, she walked determinedly towards the unaware blond.