Chapter Text
It had been three years since the purge. Three years since the crystal pillar formed. Three years of waiting, of trying to convince those in charge that they wouldn't bring Cocoon down on their heads. That Fang and Vanille weren't dangerous. That he was a good enough pilot to not crash into the pillar.
It had taken too damn long.
Sazh watched as they unloaded Fang and Vanille's crystal from the plane. Serah had assured him that words spoken to them would reach them through the stasis. He hoped that having people around would make things more bearable for them. Maybe people being around would even help them wake up sooner. Those two deserved to be able to live their lives.
The crystal was carted into what was in the process of becoming a good sized school. It had started out as one small building that Serah and NORA had built, and more were added as more teachers and students came. Serah had decreed that Fang and Vanille would watch over the school from its tiny courtyard. Sazh smiled. Those two might be crystal, but they sure wouldn't be lonely.
Serah had been planning to have the students plant a flower garden around the crystal. She paced around the courtyard after once the crystal was in place, mentally planning out where the flowerbeds should go.
Struck with a sudden idea, she spun to face Sazh. "We should build a museum, right next to the school. Fill it with artifacts from the ruins we find on Gran Pulse. I've heard they've already brought back some from Oerba. When Fang and Vanille wake up they can tell us all about them."
"Where are you going to find room to add another building?" Sazh looked around the small courtyard. It was already completely ringed by classrooms.
"We have room, the school is on the edge of town, and so we have all the room we could want. Just think, you can meet Daj there after school."
Sazh grinned and shook his head. "You young people and your dreams. Always thinking big." He turned to Fang and Vanille. "You better wake up soon! We're going to get everything about Oerba wrong without you, you know?"
In his mind's eye he could see Vanille grinning at them.
OOO
Lightning should have been grateful to have a decent house in New Bodhum. She didn't even have to share the communal housing with six other families like most did. Instead, she had to share to share it with Serah and her new husband Snow.
And Sazh and his son.
And Hope and his father.
And Snow's buddies from NORA.
People were constantly coming and going, making it more akin to barracks or dormitories than a home. It was two storied, bedrooms above, kitchen and common rooms below. The construction, like all early-built structures, was quick and cheap, lacking in insulation of any sort. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter and they could hear every aircraft that flew above them. Lightning's room was also far to close to Serah and Snow's for her tastes. Running into Snow first thing in the morning had never been high on her list, even when they were on the run as L'Cie.
But somehow, somewhere along the way, tuning out the late night exuberant shouts from NORA and stepping over the toys Dajh left on the stairs became routine and familiar. Serah and Sazh discussing ways to make their meager rations stretch further became normal. And somehow, the crowded, flimsy, noisy house became home.
No one knew them as the l'Cie who saved Cocoon. The brands were gone; most who knew their faces well had died in the disasters and near collapse of leadership that followed the fall of Dysley. They were nobodies, just refugees from the disaster like everyone else.
It was strange.
Lieutenant Amodar had never processed her resignation from the chaos of the purge and upon seeing her again proceeded to act like it had never happened and ignored her whenever she tried to broach the subject. It felt good to work again and keeping monsters away from exploration and work crews usually kept her busy.
Lightning watched the work crews dig the foundations for what would someday become New Palumpolum. Unlike the ramshackle New Bohdum, this would be a planned city of permanent buildings and streets for new Gran Pulse colonists. New Bohdum had always been overcrowded with refugees, but with the increase of people lured by the rumors of the rich, empty land beneath them the hastily built city was close to bursting at the seams. It didn't help that the fortune-seekers seemed to possess little common sense and the Guardian Corps constantly had to rescue them from monsters.
Lightning was just beginning her lunch break when a cry rang out from one of the workers. Hastily dropping her lunchbox, she hurried to the source of the yell, weapon at the ready. It wouldn't be the first time a burrowing monster had caught them by surprise.
The workers held their shovels loosely in their hands. Astonishment, not fear decorated their faces as they stared down at the hollow chamber they had cracked open beneath them.
"What do you think it is?"
"Ruins?"
"Quick, get a light!"
"Be careful. It could be dangerous down there." Lightning walked to the edge of the hole and looked in. It was too dark to see much, but from the light that filtered through the hole there appeared to be the remains of possibly furniture and what may have once been a table of some sort. Taking the light from the worker, she dropped down.
The ruins were completely unlike those she had seen in Oerba. Rather than the arced, natural shapes of the Oerba ruins, she stood in a dark industrial-looking room. Remains of what may have been parts of the interior walls littered the floor. The sheen of archaic computer screens barely glinted beneath the blanket of dust that lay on top of them. A red diamond on a dark square decorated one wall. There appeared to be come kind of faded writing on it. Lightning carefully moved across the uneven floor to get a better look.
A soft thud landed behind her. Lieutenant Amodar had dropped down behind her. He whistled. "Looks like some pretty old ruins. The historians are going to love this."
Lightning made a non-committal noise a brushed some of the dust off the logo. There was some sort of design on the diamond and something that looked like writing on the lower left, but the writing was too faded to read. "Sir, take a look at this."
He peered over her shoulder. "Looks like it might predate the War of Transgression."
"Never took you for an academic, Lieutenant."
"My mother was a historian. I picked up some trivia here and there."
Lightning scanned the room with the narrow flashlight beam. More faded signs adorned the walls, their messages short. Mostly directional or cautionary signs if the barely visible arrows and diagrams were any indication. The only thing she could read without removing a blanket of dust was the number sixty-seven painted next to the crumbed remains of a stairwell.
Amodar chuckled. "Ruins from a Pre-war of Transgression civilization? There's going to be a bloodbath over who gets to excavate this."
OOO
Serah's eyes glittered. "Pre-war ruins?"
"We should go explore them. Who knows what we'll find!" Snow grinned.
"I don't think they'll take kindly to you blundering through the site, Snow." Lightning's voice was even.
"Aww… come on, Sis. You can't tell me it doesn't nag at your sense of adventure."
"Let the professionals do their job. You'll just break something." He was right, but Lightning would never let him have that satisfaction.
Unfortunately by now Snow had known her too long to be convinced by the act. "Maybe they'll let us help out with the dig. There's always the chance of some monsters showing up right?"
"That's a great idea! Someday, I can show my students the artifacts we dig up." Serah's voice drifted off as she got that look in her eye that said she was already thinking up the kind of lesson plans she could make. Serah was a natural at teaching, but at times she seemed to talk of little else.
Lightning sighed and decided to leave the two idiots to their plans, knowing she'd hear nothing else for weeks. The next two days were spent dodging questions about who would be excavating, and if anything new had been discovered.
Before she knew it, they had dragged Hope into their scheming. Lightning was surprised; she never would have thought that the kid would have an interest in archaeology.
"Light! Anything new at the ruins? Did they find any more rooms?" Hope ambushed her as soon as she came through the door.
She could only sigh in resignation. Might as well give him the daily report and be done with it. "Apparently the ruins are beneath the whole site. They got someone who specializes in ancient history out to look at the room we found."
"Oh…" Hope looked somewhat disappointed. "So no treasure then?"
"No treasure yet." She gave him a pat on the shoulder and headed upstairs.
OOO
Hope had always liked history, but it was using the pulse dreadnought to break down gates in Cocoon had really started his interest in artifacts. The idea that something could be five hundred years old and still work had been amazing. The Oerba ruins had been the nail in the coffin. He had listened with rapt attention as Vanille explained how people had lived and watched closely when they repaired Bahkti. When Lightning had told them about the new ruins, ruins even older than Oerba, he couldn't help it.
The scientific expeditionary team had been happy to take him on as a volunteer. They had him assigning a number and taking a picture of each artifact they pulled up from the ruins. It was tedious at times, but it allowed him to see nearly everything they found. Hope wished they would let him in the ruins, but they were strict about letting only those trained in excavation inside. He'd seen photos of the interior, but it was hardly the same as being there.
The archaeologists loved to speculate on what the artifacts did, and what the building might have been for. The logo that kept appearing everywhere in the ruin was apparently for the "Shinra Electric Company." Though why an electric company would have a room filled with what looked appeared to be some kind of military armory was beyond any of them.
He had just finished cataloguing a collection of small mysterious items when they brought something large wrapped in canvas into the warehouse. Larger items that had to be lifted up by ropes were often wrapped up to prevent damage during transport.
Hope peeled back the canvas to find himself looking at what appeared to be a stuffed toy cat riding a moogle.