Chapter Text
Jihl had a plan. It might not have been the most ingenious plan, but it was a plan to lure the l’Cie to their captive comrades. Right into an ambush that would either capture or take them out, too. Either way, all six of them would soon be in custody and this horrible time in history would be over. Things could go back to normal.
All she ever wanted was to protect Cocoon’s citizens.
Having those rat l’Cie push right through her ambush, and finding out the other two had escaped, made her angry enough to crush her glasses in her hands as she paced in agitation across the bridge of the Palamecia.
Damn those l’Cie!
Still, she kept her composure, standing by the Primarch as the six of them ran in, and though she might not have looked like much of a challenge for them, she was still capable of more than any of those normal PSICOM soldiers. She was not afraid of a few Pulse l’Cie rats.
“Been looking for you, Nabaat!” Sazh Katzroy called, pointing directly at her.
Of course, he would call her out like that. No one else cared who she was. Well, perhaps the redhead. But she was too quiet and timid to do anything about it. Jihl simply smirked and jumped off the ledge where the Primarch sat, ready to stand between him and the hateful l’Cie.
“Your Eminence, please escape,” she requested calmly, pulling her baton from its position at her side in one smooth motion. “I’ll cover your retreat.”
The l’Cie shifted as she stood there, as if they expected a fight. Good. They should. Jihl wasn’t about to let them go without one. They would have to dump her cold body on the floor before she would let them pass her.
“Why don’t you leave, Jihl? Or rather, take your leave. Humans have no business here.”
She heard the Primarch’s voice, but it was not his usual tone that shone through. Something more sinister lay beneath and it confused her.
“Your Eminence?”
She turned to get a good look at him, confusion shining through. Somewhere along the line, the Primarch had begun floating in the air. Jihl could see no wires or technology that could have gotten him up there nor anything that could be keeping him up there. She faltered, visibly, gasping as the Primarch laughed, his voice echoing with that sinister tone even now. His staff glowed white as silver orbs flew through the air, from the staff to each member of the command crew. Everyone touched by one of the orbs died instantly.
As the Primarch’s attention turned to her, Jihl knew she was next.
“No!”
“Dysley!”
Several gasps accompanied a few yells, but what caught Jihl’s attention was the big, burly l’Cie ― Snow Villiers, wasn’t it? ― running in front of her, standing between her and the Primarch with his arms raised and crossed in front of his head. As though that could protect him. Jihl didn’t understand his sudden change.
“Monster!” Snow yelled, his voice full of righteous anger. “People are not yours to use!”
What little Jihl could see of the Primarch’s face looked interested, even as the ceiling of the bridge faded away to reveal sunlight. She barely even knew what was going on anymore. Part of her wanted to run. Part of her wanted to stay and listen. The majority of her couldn’t quite force herself to leave yet, so she took a few steps back and to the side, hoping that it would be enough space between herself and whatever the hell was going on.
“What else does one do with tools?” the Primarch asked, finally floating to the ground.
Snow growled, obviously the most easily upset by everything, and thrust himself towards the Primarch. His movements were to no avail; a translucent yellow barrier shimmered in front of the Primarch and Snow bounced off it like rubber, shooting backwards and rolling end over end. The others gasped and yelled, one bent to help him, and everyone turned back to stare at Primarch Dysley, including Jihl.
What power did that? Though she supposed it could have been PSICOM weaponry or defense, she had never actually seen anything with an effect quite like that before. It was… unsettling. She didn’t like not knowing things. Especially when they had such an effect on her personal safety. Or Cocoon’s.
For the first time in her life, she was doubting her own Primarch and she didn’t know what to do about that.
“Cocoon is a factory, built by fal’Cie,” the Primarch continued, unconcerned for everything going on. “A factory for the mass production of human thralls.”
“Not anymore, it’s not!” Snow protested, his breath shallow with exertion. Whatever the Primarch’s barrier had done wasn’t a pleasant effect. Jihl would have to remember that.
“What can mere men do? Without our help, death is all of which you’re capable.”
Our help? Jihl’s mind raced. What did that mean? Whose help? He made it sound as though he wasn’t human. As though he wasn’t part of any of this.
“You saw the fools. A mindless mob drunk on fear of a few l’Cie.”
The pink-haired l’Cie stepped forward ― Farron. Lightning? ― lifting her weapon as she spoke and leveling it between her and the Primarch. “If only they knew a l’Cie was the one filling their glasses!”
Jihl’s head shot over and then back to the Primarch. A l’Cie? Him?
“Your Eminence…?”
“L’Cie?” The Primarch began laughing, as though the idea of him being a l’Cie were the most hilarious thing he had ever heard. “You mean me? Oh child, perish the thought. I am more than that!" His voice changed as his body did, becoming deeper in a way that no human voice could. "I am fal’Cie.”
With Snow still on the ground and none of the other l’Cie willing to stand in front of Jihl, she got a front row seat to the Primarch’s transformation. From the human they all had known for so long to the form of an unfamiliar fal’Cie, one that snapped out a clawed hand towards Jihl. Before she could flinch or even bring her weapon to bear, he gripped her face between his fingers, claws digging into her skin. She screamed, her free hand reaching to scratch and tear at whatever she could reach. Her skin burned, a black-and-white vision of destruction and flame tore through her mind, and then the fal’Cie tossed her aside like a child’s doll. She crashed to the ground, rolling end over end until the friction of her clothes against the floor ground her to a halt. The redheaded l’Cie, Vanille, squeaked and hurried over to her, dropping to her hands and knees beside Jihl.
“She’s been branded!” she cried, looking for all the world as though she were about to burst into tears like she had back in Nautilus. “She’s a l’Cie!”
Several gasps of, “What?” greeted that proclamation, but there was no time to do anything about it. The fal’Cie had begun to move again and several stepped forward to stand between him and the others as he spoke yet again, his voice booming and echoing in the chamber, as inhuman as could be.
“I am Barthandelus. Voice of the Sanctum and Lord Sovereign of the Cocoon fal’Cie. Your kind feared the darkness, so we gave you light. You begged us for the Purge and did it not come to pass? Now you spurn our counsel? You must learn your place!”
As if they had heard a silent cue, three of the l’Cie stepped forward to meet him. Lightning, the young boy, and one of the real Pulse l’Cie. Snow stepped back, once again placing himself between Jihl and the Primarch-turned-fal’Cie. Vanille didn’t get up and Sazh… Sazh stood close to Snow for a reason Jihl couldn’t even begin to guess at. Not that she tried particularly hard. As the small battle began, Jihl watched through the haze of shock, almost unable to comprehend what she had just heard.
Not to mention what had just happened to her.
The three fighting yelled at the fal’Cie and he spoke confidently back to them, unconcerned with whatever damage they were doing to him. The fal’Cie that had just branded her. She had a brand. Jihl lifted a hand to her cheek, feeling the tight skin where the brand was: straight across her cheek, parallel with her jaw.
Vanille must have seen her touching it, for she traced a finger around the outline. “Your brand looks like Dajh’s. You’ve got the brand of a Cocoon l’Cie. You’re lucky.”
“Lucky?” Jihl retorted, glaring at the girl. This was all her fault. How dare she say Jihl was lucky. “I spent my life helping Cocoon and its citizens, keeping them safe from l’Cie threats and figuring out the Focus of those touched by Cocoon fal’Cie. And now I am one?”
“Don’t you even bring Dajh into this, Nabaat,” Sazh growled quietly. “What you did to him, keeping him from his parent and always running tests on him, wasn’t a kindness.”
“It was the only thing we could do with a child that young!” Jihl snapped back. “Did you want your son to turn Cie’th because no one could figure out his Focus?”
Sazh didn’t answer for a moment, but Jihl didn’t think she had won that argument yet. People like him just didn’t know when to quit.
“No, but you could have let me stay with him.”
Jihl snorted derisively, but didn’t answer. Luckily, she didn’t need to. The Primarch ― the fal’Cie Barthandelus ― fell to the ground. Jihl finally pushed herself upright, still trying to sort through most of her feelings on the matter.
“A fal’Cie running the Sanctum,” Snow commented with the same sort of disbelief that was currently running through Jihl’s head.
“Then… I guess it wasn’t Eden controlling things after all,” the young boy added on.
“As I said.” The Primarch’s voice rang out as the ground shook under them all, tossing Jihl back to the ground. His human form rematerialized as though to torment them and Jihl thought she felt her brand twitch. “I am Lord-Sovereign.”
“Guess fal’Cie don’t go down as easy as the rest of us,” Sazh glowered.
“Ease is not the issue,” the Primarch pointed out. “You have not fought to win.”
As if that were the real issue at hand. Jihl curled her legs up under her so she was finally in a squatting position, ready to run at the slightest sign that she could, but not high enough to gain her any undue attention. Best not to catch the Primarch’s attention again, let alone any of the l’Cie she hasn’t yet gotten the measure of. They’re all loose cannons to her at this point.
“You should know quite well already the sure way of dispatching our kind. Ragnarok.”
“What’s Ragnarok?” the blue Pulse girl asked, saving Jihl the effort of finding out herself. As if in response to her defiant question, the girl's brand must have shot pain through her somehow; she gasped and bent over, clutching at her frozen brand.
“Pitiful l’Cie, you’ve forgotten your Focus.” Primarch Dysley lifted his hand, pointing one solitary finger at all of the Pulse l'Cie in turn; Jihl noticed that he left her out. “Ragnarok is the beast one of you must become in order to lay waste to Cocoon.”
Out of all of them, Vanille’s reaction was the most curious and Jihl watched out of the corner of her eyes as the girl clutched her head and stumbled away, like she wanted to hide from the memory of a nightmare. If nothing else came of this, at least Jihl was learning so much about all of these Pulse l’Cie.
“One among you will become that monstrosity, defeat Orphan, and destroy Cocoon.”
“Orphan?” Jihl finally dared to ask, wanting more information without letting go of any opportunity to find it. Luckily, her question didn’t seem to come as a surprise to anyone.
“The font of Eden’s power. Orphan fuels Eden with strength, and Eden in turn sustains you and the rest of our kind. Destroy Orphan and you’ll release a force such as this world has never seen. Cocoon will be torn asunder.”
That was the part Jihl couldn’t understand. Why would the Primarch, fal’Cie or no, want to destroy Cocoon? What purpose did that serve?
“Why?” she gasped, unable to wrap her head around it.
No one seemed to pay her any heed and maybe that was for the best this time. She still didn’t want them to pay her too much attention and maybe one of them could throw out the answers she wanted so desperately. Answers like why she was dragged into this mess.
“So, if I did that…” the blue Pulse girl breathed, finally pulling herself upright again, her hand still covering her brand. “…Destroyed Orphan.”
“Your Focus would be fulfilled.”
“So, what?” Lightning snapped, aiming her weapon for the Primarch’s face. He didn’t let her get close enough, teleporting away before her blade could even get close. “Who says it has to be?”
Snow finally stepped forward, away from Jihl, leaving her mostly unprotected. Vanille also stood again, though she had moved further away once she let her hands fall from her head again. Sazh didn’t seem to want to go much of anywhere, but Jihl chalked that up to his dislike of doing too much rather than any desire to protect her.
“Serah asked us to save Cocoon before she turned to crystal,” Snow declared, holding up what looked like a crystal diamond of some sort. Why was he carrying that around like an idiot? “Save it. And that’s what we’re gonna do!”
The Primarch laughed that creepy laugh again and a shiver slid down Jihl’s back. She was really done with all of this. Slowly, she started inching her way back, towards the doorway, as quietly as she could. If she could just get close enough, she could retreat as fast as possible once she had learned everything she could.
“Your friend’s Focus required that you be brought together. That girl did nothing but assemble the tools for Cocoon’s destruction.”
Snow stumbled backwards, stunned. Jihl kept sliding backwards, using the backs of her shoes to tell how far she had to go before she hit the wall. Or a chair or console.
“Did it never occur to you? Or did you simply refuse to countenance the thought?”
No one spoke. The ship shuddered, as though something had exploded in her bowels, and everyone staggered. In the middle of moving, Jihl’s knee hit the floor and she hissed in pain.
“If you will not face the truth, then face the peril of your plight.”
The Primarch’s pet owl, Jihl was noticing, really did like to do odd things. Like turn into aircraft somehow. This, being a fal’Cie’s puppet, was not what she had signed up for when she’d become a colonel.
“Run, l’Cie!” the Primarch laughed as he disappeared into the ceiling underneath the aircraft. “See how stark reality is!”
The ship shuddered a second time and Jihl knew her moment of escape had fled. She had taken too long.
“Come on!” Lightning yelled, running for the front of the bridge.
“We can’t just leave her here!” Snow protested, turning back to face Jihl. She froze as everyone looked back at her, still having hoped she could have escaped unnoticed. “She’s one of us now!”
“The hell she is!” Sazh snapped, pointing at her cheek. “She’s a Cocoon l’Cie! We’re supposed to be enemies!”
“Yeah, but wasn’t that before we found out our Primarch is a fal’Cie?” Hope pointed out.
“Snow’s right,” Vanille agreed with a firm nod. “We shouldn’t leave her!”
The last two words were emphasized mainly because the ship shuddered a third time. Snow stopped protesting and simply ran back for Jihl. Grabbing one of her arms, he hauled her to her feet and practically shoved her out in front of him. She didn’t see any way she could protest. Pulse l’Cie, Cocoon l’Cie. They were all the same. They were l’Cie. And whatever her Focus meant, maybe it was to stop them all. Maybe….
But why would the man ― the fal’Cie ― who wanted Cocoon to be destroyed give her a Focus that would save it?
Nothing made sense, but as Jihl stumbled across the threshold and into an escape craft, she decided that she didn’t have the energy to complain. She had time, time to figure out her Focus and how to stop these l’Cie from destroying Cocoon. No matter what they said, she didn’t believe for an instant that they didn’t all want to destroy Orphan and kill everyone on Cocoon. And no matter the personal cost, she would save Cocoon.