Learning My Roots (Hope Estheim Love Story)

Chapter 5: Mark and Magic

Disclaimer: Everything besides Bella and her family belong to Square Enix.

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The place looked like it was going to fall apart. The afro guy was saying that the Sanctum must be trying to get rid of the place out of cocoon. "We can't stay here. They'll kill us," Hope said afraid. I continued to look around. There has to be something that we could do.

Everything stopped shaking. A door opened in front of us. The big guy went up to the stairs. The afro guy and the guy had a bit of an argument. The woman went forward ahead of everyone. The afro guy followed behind. I sighed and walked after them.

As we went deeper, there were little lights floating around. We were at the center of the fallacy. They big guy was begging for it to turn Serah back to normal. I felt like he was speaking to a wall. Lights erupted everywhere. "Whats going on?" I asked. Two screw things came up from the ground. We were blinded by a bright light.

It opened up into something indescribable. There was no escape. They had their own reasons to fight against the fal'cie. They were able to defeat it. Then, we were floating in darkness. There was a light above us. I looked around to see Hope.

We heard a clock bell. "What is this place?" I said. Something appeared before us. It was huge. It shot chains/tentacles at us. I tried to free myself but, it didn't budge. It shot us with pain. I felt it on my waist. It really hurt.

It let us go. We all fall into the dark abyss. I started to see images. I didn't understand it. Then I blacked out.

I woke up with fire surrounding me. It didn't feel hot. I didn't feel pain. I felt immune by it. "What is going on?" I said to myself. A bird appeared before me. Then, it turned into a fiery looking crystal. The crystal disappeared into my waist. Then I black out again.

I woke up surrounded by crystal. The woman walked over to me and gave me a hand. I took it and she pulled me up. "Are you okay?" she asked. "Yeah. I just feel a bit lost," I said to her. "This must be...Lake Bresha?" the afro guy said. I looked up to see light shining through. "We must have fell from up there. The lake turned into crystal?" he said confused.

We had no idea how we got here. A cieth came out of no where and the big guy used magic to knock it back. "You used magic," Hope said. We turned to see more cites coming towards us. "You used power of l'cie. The fal'Cie cursed us. We're l'cie now," Hope explained.

We had the brand in different places. I had it on my waist. I turned around and checked it. It was there. Hope fell to his knees. "Why me?" he said in disbelief. He wanted to be left alone. He was clenching his fist. I wanted to walk to him and comfort him, but I didn't know how.

"All of this is yours and Serah's fault," Hope said finally. The big guy pushed him a bit. Hope scooted backward to the woman. He was in panic mode. I didn't blame him to a certain extent. I wasn't well informed about these kind of thing.

Vanille walked over to him to comfort him. "Everything is going to be alright. You'll see," she said and helped him to his feet. She pulled him and led the way. We all followed her. "If we don't know our focus. How do we complete it?" the woman asked.

"I think..I saw it," Vanille said. We turned to her. "Saw what?" the woman asked. "Thats how our focus comes down people," the afro guy said. The woman turned to Hope. "Did you see anything?" she asked him. Hope said that it was foggy a bit. He started to describe the images. "That sounded the same as what I saw," I said.

{We must have all the same focus.} "Ragnarok," the woman and the big guy said. "You mean that was our focus?" Hope asked. We had no idea what we were suppose to do with the images that we saw in the dream.

We started to walk off again. We learned each other's name. Snow, Sazh, and Lightning were having an argument. "Freeze," we heard. It was PSICOM troops. "Place your hands behind your head," we heard. We followed the orders. Lightning was taunting one of the soldiers.

She knocked out one of them. I threw my chakram at a few that were coming towards her. We were able to knock all of them out. I learned that PSICOM was an anti-pulse force. We continued our way around the place.

It was much bigger than I thought. Sazh complained about kids being involved. We managed to find Serah stuck in the crystal ground. Snow, Sazh, and Vanille tried to chip her out. I stood behind. Lightning walked passed us. {Is she abandoning her sister?} It seemed like she was.

Their was another argument. Then we saw a light. It was a mechanical monster. We managed to fight it off. Snow decided to stay behind to get Serah out while the rest of us move on. I followed Lightning. I didn't want to see Hope's angry face.

We made it near a edge of a crystal cliff. It looked like troops were being armed and ready for something. "They must be hunting for purge survivors," Sazh said. People feared things or people from pulse.

Hope stood up. "L'cie are not human," Hope said. Vanille had enough and stopped him by grabbing his arm with the brand. Something flew passed above us. Lightning said that they were trying to seal us off. We needed to move quickly before we were caught.

Soon, we didn't see much of a crystal surrounding anymore. We made it to an area that looked like fiery crystal. I stood still in place. "Its too quiet," I said to them. It was a sign that something was watching us. I knew from Buki's combat training.

I started to look around more closely. Lightning turned to look at me. "What's wrong?" she asked me. Hoped looked at me. "I think something is watching us," I said. Vanille was wander off on her own until I saw her running and screaming. A big flying monster appeared.

"Told you," I said. We were able to destroy it. A ship was revealed before us. We went on aboard. It actually flew. It sounded the alarms of the enemy. This was really bad for us. Lightning tried to get control of the ship. We managed to destroy one of the ships that were following us.

We had a few more behind.