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The Artifact	By : PandaBearzh Category: Final Fantasy Games > Final Fantasy XIII-2 Views: 2037 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the final fantasy fandom. I do not make $$ from this fiction.

Chapter List
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[NAN]

The cause for the commotion stirring in the village wasn’t readily apparent to the villagers, but they had long-since learned to recognize the changes in the winds. Sometimes it was only the winds, but sometimes they were right to fear. Their neighbors were, unknowingly somehow, of a very malevolent spirit. The two worlds’ citizens honestly didn’t look much different except for the way that they were dressed. In a prior century, both roamed Gran Pulse together in harmony. The slope had been gradual, but also a very slippery one. Now, the villagers would look to the skies for the descent of dark beings, trained to obey the every biding of their riders. When they felt the ground tremble beneath their feet, they would turn to the west and recognize the powerful and hungry beasts advancing to feast on everything they had to offer. Once even, their eastern shores were polluted and barricaded, massacring and effectively demolishing their food supply for many years to come. The populations decreased significantly over those years, but those who managed to survive came together, helping each other in what had appeared to be their final hour of need. The term “oppression” didn’t begin to include the atrocities that the hovering kingdom imposed on the people of the land. The world was an evil and lonely place, the village decided, but there was nothing that they could do about it.
That was, until Fang and Vanille awoke from their slumber. The village took it as a sign that there existed still hope in the world, and although that hope differed from person to person, the consensus was that these strong young women would guide them to their ultimate survival. The first thing that they did, was teach the young men and able women how to fight and defend themselves against any threats that might appear before them. The first thing that the villagers taught the ladies was that some battles were easier won from the shadows. Blitz attacks from Cocoon were a force to be reckoned with, so when any villager sensed the beating of a Wyvren’s wings, an immediate alarm was raised. In fact, that was exactly what was happening to the town at this exact moment.
“I can’t see them!” Fang was shouting to the blonde who had alerted her, “Where are they?”
“There!” she answered, lowering her binoculars and pointing directly at a freckle swaying in the sky. “Three of them!”
“Everybody, rear your children!” Vanille was encouraging, directing the panicking villagers into their homes. “Alyssa, how far?”
“T-2 minutes for landing!” the blonde with the binoculars reported, back stepping slowly. “No—No, they’re diving! They’re coming in too fast! People! Move your asses!” She put her binoculars away and started tearing down leather door-hangs and pulling sliding doors closed on the homes she was in the closest proximity to. Once the doors were closed, they seamlessly blended in with the texture of the house, leaving something looking like a giant debarked stump sticking out of the soil. In fact, that’s exactly what they were.
Three large shadows engulfed the landscape as the Wyvrens descended perilously closer. Doors were slamming shut left and right as the last of the villagers secured themselves away from harm. Fang strengthened her position and braced herself for the tornado of dirt that would soon explode into her face under the wings of the dragons.
No such tornado came.
The riders had halted their beasts somewhere between ten and fifteen feet in the air.
“Come down here and fight like a man!” Fang provoked the left flank.
“Oh, no. We’re just dropping something off,” called the central rider with glee. While the other riders wore helmets, armor, and large weapons, the speaker appeared extraordinarily underdressed. He wore a black sanctum uniform with a purple tie, but no additional armor, and no helm to protect his delicate looking obsidian silken hair from whipping his face in the wind.
“We don’t need anything of yours,” Fang retorted, holding her position but noticing for the first time that there was an oddly shaped sack in the Wyvren’s claws.
“Are you sure? I thought you’d be looking for this.” He blew a high whistle and the lumpy sack started to roll out of his servant’s claws. “Thank-you for lending him to me. He provided to be very useful and was extensively entertaining.” Fang’s heart skipped a beat in tune to her epiphany. This was a body drop. It was rare that Cocoon officials would bring someone back after taking them, but when they did there was usually a significant reason for their actions. In fact, it was such a rare occurrence that Cid Raines usually operated the missions personally. “Again, your friend was an excellent source of useful information. Please, do us a favor and inscribe that on his tombstone,” he added, signaling to the others to ascend once again into the sky.
Noel saw the world in slow motion. He read the sneer in the commander’s eyes, and even above the commotion, his abhorrent chuckle was unmistakable and repugnant to him. The Wyvrens beat their wings powerfully, shooting into the sky like rockets. It was clear to him, even considering the treatment he had thus far experienced, who the true enemy was. Everything, it truly had been a misunderstanding. It must have been. The clear fact of the matter was that Noel would never want to ally himself with someone as despicable as the invaders.
“Get him!” Fang cried out, throwing herself towards the plummeting corpse. Their friend was not even six feet from the ground. She wasn’t going to make it in time! Her arm began to blur and refract in front of her as she reached for him, but the tears didn’t distract her from trying. No – four feet – she was too late! The body bag slipped beneath her grasp just as an indigo blur crashed into her, knocking her to the ground.
“Fang!” Alyssa emerged from her terrifically stone-frozen position to assist her leader off of the brick.
“You – You!” Fang jumped to her feet on her own and spun her lance in order to attack the one who interfered with her attempts to save her friend. She faltered when she realized that the blur was Noel, sliding himself underneath the sack to cushion its impact. “No! Stop, don’t open it!”
“Hope?” Noel asked, pulling the string and revealing a pale and handsome twenty something’s peaceful face. “Hope!” The brunette broke the string and tore the cheap bag asunder. His friend was fully clothed, but not in the same uniform that Noel was accustomed to seeing him in. Instead of the Academy standard issue jacket and grey slacks, he wore a black overcoat featuring a pattern of silver entwining veins. The tie around his neck was a dark lavender color, matching the tie fastened around Raines’ neck. It was the uniform offered to the militia of this new Cocoon. There was something about this particular uniform that disturbed Noel. There were no wrinkles or unnecessary creases or pleats on the tie. Actually, the entire ensemble appeared to be brand new. Hope looked as if he’d been dressed up and given a brand new uniform for his burial. It was an entirely different approach to an apology for the event than the disposition of the soldiers who had only moments ago departed. Someone had taken the care to iron the uniform and tailor it to his body. Fang, from the looks of it, didn’t share Noel’s concern for this minor part of their discovery.
“He’s alive,” the woman announced, startling the small crowd of militia that had started to gather. She turned to Noel, “take him, bring him to Snow,” she commanded. “You, fetch some water and boil me three units.” Noel nodded, even if she wasn’t paying attention to him any longer. He’d take that as an apology… It was probably the best that he was going to get. Indeed, he could feel Hope’s respiration in the position he held him in.
“Hey, buddy, I’m just going to help you up, ok?” He offered draping the other male’s left arm around his shoulder. Hope’s eyes shot open and stared at him intently. “What’s wrong?” the brunette asked after a minute, not entirely sure which emotion was swimming in Hope’s blue eyes. Hope shared no answer, he just stared at him, silently. “Okay, okay. Up we go…”
“Uggh,” Hope grimaced, slamming his lids shut and clenching his jaw in pain. Noel took note that he was favoring his right leg a bit and shifted to his right side. Once he had him standing, those who hadn’t been directed to fetch something by Fang began to bring their hands together in an earnestly supportive applause.
“What?” Noel asked, realizing that Hope’s panting wasn’t only panting.
“I said, get me the hell out of here,” he repeated a little bit louder, his eyes focusing on the shine of his right boot toe.
“Right!” Noel couldn’t help but grin. “You must want some rest…” Silence. “I’m Noel, by the way. I know you probably wouldn’t remember me.” This world didn’t seem to follow any timeline that he had true history with Hope Estheim.
“I know,” Hope affirmed, sliding one foot in front of the other and allowing the majority of his weight to be carried by his companion. Noel almost dropped him in surprise.
“You know?!” He tried to catch his friend’s eye, but Hope had his closed now.
“Let’s…later,” he exhaled with great difficulty.
“If you want, I can just carry you there, is that easier?” A disgruntled, irritated expression warned Noel not to mention favors like that again anytime soon. “Right, gotcha. My lips are sealed,” he promised. ‘Christ, poor Hope,’ he thought, analyzing the effort and determination that this short distance must have required of his friend. It was an unbelievable entrance, though. He looked like he wouldn’t have a mark on him, and yet he was treated as if he had already died? Was it just a ploy of Raines’ to act as if he had died to fuck with the village? He didn’t seem like a very amiable type of person, and it wasn’t that Noel preferred to associate with amiable people. The discomfort that he felt around the cruel was a sensation that kept him at a distance from them. This was the same cruelness that he had expected from Caius, a once loving albeit serious man turned immortal malevolent energy.
Caius. Yes, there he was, that man shrouded in black. The man with the mask. He was standing – no, guarding the entry to the hut where Noel had abandoned Snow. Hope pressed by him as if he didn’t even see him. The Traveler permitted their passing but returned to his station outside of the door. Was it so that they wouldn’t be bothered? Oh, Hope was pointing at something… Noel turned back to see what it was.
“Snow, he’s not here. He lied to me,” Hope was saying as he seated himself on the table. “He said that you… that you killed him? But he’s not here so that was just another one of his lies!”
“Who told you? Who told you about me that is?” He drew a stool forward so Hope could rest his feet on it, and Hope accepted the gesture with a feigned smile, but offered nothing more. Unsure of what to further do with himself, Noel reached for one of the bowls that were stacked next to the natural spring. He filled one of them with water and offered it to Hope. Hope again, accepted it without a word, but also without courtesy.
“What happened to you? Where were you?” Noel pried quietly, leaning backwards against the table and hoping to get the topic at hand away from Snow’s health. Hope stared at his own reflection in the bowl.
He could barely recognize himself, yet he hadn’t changed at all. That man, his reflection. How lively he looked. His white hair looked brighter than it had in years. His eyebrows had been freshly shaped, and there was a certain rosiness that was perpetually gaining on his cheeks. Those eyes were captivating, even for him. They looked at him with scorn, disgust… He didn’t want to look at them any longer. He was sick of seeing them. The way they glistened was perverse. Everything about them was broken.
“Noel,” he began, dipping a finger into the bowl and pulling it out again, “you’re not from around here. But, would you know what the March of Fates was?”
“Not especially,” responded the other carefully. He knew Noel was waiting for him to explain and he swallowed hard, biting the tip of his tongue to remind himself of the present reality; of any present reality before he continued.
“About five years ago,” Hope began, “there was apparently a lack of entertainment for the Time Lord. The March of Fates was Cocoon’s answer to his demands.” He blinked at the bowl of water again for a moment, realizing that the way the bow was shaking was creating soft ripples of its own. His reflection was appropriately distorted but it wasn’t enough. Those cold, icy eyes were boring into his soul and he couldn’t escape them.
“A marathon?” his companion inquired after a moment. It snapped Hope out of his daze.
“Take this,” he demanded, shoving the bowl back at Noel and refusing to look at it again. Noel set it behind him on the table. “No, it’s not a marathon.” Eugh, there was something making his throat dry and tight. “When you are forcibly taken to Cocoon, you are invited to participate in the March of Fates. You are presented before the Empress and she offers you a choice. You can either request her personal divine judgment, or you can elect to choose your own fate. She presents you with two baskets and from them you must randomly choose one token each. The first token determines the punishment, the second token determines your forgiveness.”
“Punishment? Wouldn’t that only happen if the person was criminal?”
“I associate with alleged rebels,” he smiled a sarcastic smile. “Empress Farron believes that I—”
“What?! Lightening? She would never do something like that!” Noel snapped, in disbelief.
“Lightening is dead! Serah thinks that we killed her!” Hope shouted passionately perhaps a bit too loudly. Noel shook his head, this conversation had escalated rather quickly.
“What? When? How? Lightening’s so tough.”
“Anyone can get ‘gotten in their sleep,” Hope murmured, discovering again he could see his reflection now in the shine of his boots. “I remember when that happened. She used to babysit me when I lived on Cocoon. Serah and I were such good friends. We used to build entire cities in the sand at Palumpolum Beach. But… but then something changed. She started getting spacey and weird. I was really worried about it. So, I asked Lightening. She said she was going to go and talk to her about it, and I went home. That same night, someone broke in, I guess.” He cringed, and dropped his head in his hands, “You didn’t see the monument outside?”
“No… what happened?”
“Whoever it was, they cut off her head, and they dragged her body out of the house. It took weeks to find her, and when they did… She’s dead, Noel. She’s just dead. There’s no denying it. I saw it with my own eyes.
“I think that,” he continued, “The killer is from Cocoon. I know these people, and they all would have given their life for her. She was such an amazing peace ambassador for the nations. Now everything has gone to hell again. Though. I think that might change. Raines told me that you were going to be here. He’s been looking for you for all of the months—” Hope stopped himself and lay back on the table, his head resting over his laced fingers. “I’m not sure why, but there has to be a reason.”
Noel mirrored his actions, trying to do what he could to make his friend comfortable again. He hadn’t meant to upset him, but it was such a shock to hear that Lightening was dead. Wow, a world without Lightening? He knew that she wasn’t waiting for he and Serah at Valhalla any longer. This endless sensation must have been what Serah endured before they reunited. What could he do now about it though? Every world was different, and he was sure that as soon as he left this one, he could find another world, a world with less heartbreak.
“Well, if they want to talk to me so badly maybe I should go knock on their door,” he joked, incorrectly believing the mood had lifted to a more academic casual scene.
“If you do, you’ll have to participate in the March of Fates,” Hope answered dryly. “and you probably won’t be as lucky as I was… lucky. I have a feeling that it’s rigged but of course there’s no way to prove it.”
“Mmm,” Noel mused, realizing only now how thin the ice was in this area, “yeah, it seems you were pretty lucky. I mean, at least they took care of you. You must have chosen something really lucky.”
“Death and Life.”
“What?”
“Death and Life,” Hope echoed.
“Yeah, what does that mean?” Noel asked, rolling on his side to better read Hope’s face.
Hope’s lips stiffened. They felt chapped but they were as absolutely smooth as they had been when he had been abducted from he and Alyssa’s scouting mission. His mouth was so incredibly dry that he objectionably knew it wasn’t dehydration. His mouth had gone dry many times over the past how many days? It was an involuntary reflex he discovered he possessed. It was a reflex that occurred when he was afraid. “I guess we’ll find out.” It sure sounded like his voice but Hope had no clue in hell how he managed to articulate it. He swallowed again, condemning his throat for misbehaving the way that it was. The gulp descended through his body as an involuntary shudder, extending from his lungs all the way down to his sore prick. Yes, his sore prick where something there secretly existed that shouldn’t belong.
Noel studied his friend’s movements carefully. This new uniform that he adorned suited him much better than the bold Academy’s colors. For the first time, the brunette’s attention could focus on the literal shapeliness and fitness of his figure. The position he was lying in… It would have been too revealing if he wasn’t wearing clothing at all. Then, already, Noel was imagining what Hope’s skin looked like beneath those robes. His gaze caressed Hope’s sprawled form like a hungry beast.
Softly, and very cautiously, he began to tilt his hips toward him, seizing the opportunity to inhale some of that mysterious erotic cologne that Hope must have been wearing. It was light enough to ensure curiosity, and sweet enough for Noel to associate Hope’s yielding to him. Hope’s eyes were closed now, a hand to his forehead in such a way that it appeared that he was either struggling to remember something or desperately trying unsuccessfully to forget. His skin was so fair, so smooth, and so perfect. Noel swallowed. Was he really thinking about this right now? Of course, he was probably still horny from Vanille’s performance earlier, but did that mean that he had the balls or even the right to act out what scene was tempting his sex? He brought his hand up and softly caressed the side of Hope’s cheek, allowing his knuckles to let aside a lock of his brilliantly smooth silver hair. Hope seemed to appreciate it. His brow furrowed a little less, and even his breathing appeared to regulate for a few seconds. He was relaxing. Aha, that was all that Noel needed to know. This was good, this is what Hope wanted too. He could help him forget, yes, he could help Hope relax.
Hope sensed a shadow beginning to cover him, and he cracked a glance. Noel was hovering over him with a satisfied looking sort of expression that made him bring his hands down to his sides defensively. Noel didn’t seem to realize the gesture, and smiled gently at him. He didn’t seem to be advancing, even though his body looked like it wanted to flip him over without warning.
“Noel…?” Hope asked, blinking up at him. “Nn, wait!” he wasn’t listening. Hope found himself gasping into a kiss, the other male shifting his body weight over him dominantly. He was afraid. This had all happened before but… this wasn’t the same. Noel appeared to actually care about him. He had just met the brunette, but he could also sense that there was some sort of connection between the two gentlemen that surpassed the limits of time and space. His body was rising on its own now, responding to the gentle consideration that Noel’s warm hand were giving his hips. He trailed his fingertips down Noel’s back, feeling the scratches and dried blood from his dive to save him earlier. His younger body healed faster than his own, it would seem, and his muscles were just as firm, if not firmer.
‘Yes, firmer,’ he decided happily, enjoying the way Noel’s experienced tongue had found its clever way to his own. They danced against each other madly, drugging Hope’s mind into a demanding madness. Noel was receiving his signals well, and was slipping his palm lower and lower on his fellow captive’s abdomen.
The overcoat was tightly woven and securely fastened, but Noel knew that he could get it off of Hope in a matter of seconds once he began. His fingers slipped over his groin and gave a slight squeeze, enjoying the shock that he felt radiate through his companion’s body. Ah, he bit him… oh, a little too hard.
Hope tore their affections apart, breaking the kiss with a feral bite and a strong kick to Noel’s groin. The brunette fell completely off the table from the force, tipping the stool he had previously provided in his fall. It took him a full six seconds to remember breathing again, nevermind the amount of time it took him to recover.
“What the fuck, Hope!?” Noel complained, bringing himself to his feet. He paused, faced now with the silent tears free-flowing down his companion’s cheeks. It was eerie the way Hope lamentably searched him for answers. Did he even know he was crying? Did he realize, himself what had just happened?
“Come here,” Hope offered, extending a hand towards him. Noel didn’t move. He didn’t dare to. The moment he had seen Hope he had made the fatal assumption that he had known him, but in this reality they had only just met. There was no reason for Hope to owe him any respect, there was no reason to trust each other. His own thoughts trailed off as the other male drew himself closer, scooting off of the table and pulling himself up against Noel. Noel embraced him, at first hesitantly. Hope’s arms laced around Noel’s neck, and he nodded into his shoulder.
“I’m so… sorry. I didn’t mean it…” he whispered. Noel could feel the rate that his heart was pounding all the way down to the small of his back. He had already forgiven him when he realized Hope’s consonance, but now, aside from the throbbing in his pants, he had all but forgotten what had happened too. Raindrops of salt were dripping down his back, tickling the fine hairs to stand erect.
“What did they do to you?” Hope slammed his eyes closed.

This next chapter earns this story a BDSM merrit badge. Grab your tissue box!
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The Artifact