Application
Personality:
Lightning is strong and able. Being a member of the military since she graduated from high school, Lightning knows how to use her brains and her brawn to get what she wants. She’s a hard nut to crack at first, but once she allows someone to get to know her, they can see she’s actually a caring individual. Her main focus is on protecting her little sister, Serah, though over the years in her military work, she became more and more focused on her job rather than her sister. Her biggest regret is that she didn’t trust Serah and that she thinks Serah didn’t trust her. Regardless, Serah was always important to Lightning and the older sister would fight with everything she had to protect the younger girl. That protective streak shows up later as Lightning forges bonds with other people, namely her fellow l’Cie, though she ends up treating Hope as a younger brother, supporting him where she can.
Overshadowing that protective streak is her lone wolf nature. At first, Lightning prefers to work alone and she understands it better; however as the game goes on she learns how to make use of her comrades. Her biggest issue is with trust. It’s hard for her to trust and accept people, and once she’s decided she doesn’t like someone, it takes a lot for her to turn that around. Snow is a prime example. Over half the game passes before she even dreams of accepting his relationship with Serah. Lightning’s defense mechanism is anger. When something happens that hurts her or someone she cares about, she gets mad. Attack first, ask questions later, like when she punches Snow for being an idiot in the beginning of the game or when she goes after the fal’Cie Anima. Getting angry hides the pain, buries it deep inside, and makes it easier to bear. She does come to let up on that anger, showing that she cares about everyone and what’s happened to them.
Through it all, Lightning’s concern is for Serah first and fighting fate second. She hates feeling boxed in by fate and being forced to do something, especially since Cocoon is her home. She doesn’t like being called, or forced to be, an enemy of Cocoon any more than she likes having her life planned for her. At one point, all she knew was the life of a soldier: do what you’re told, focus on your orders. Now, she understands the importance of choosing her own goal as well as focusing on it. Her Focus now is to fight fate, fight Dysley and the fal’Cie. She doesn’t give up, even when things look hopeless. What she doesn’t admit until she and Snow have their talk on Gran Pulse is that she actually takes Snow’s heroics to heart. His words about seeing Serah again someday and that she’s alive give Lightning the hope and courage to carry on with her goal and see it through to the end.
The underappreciated fact about Lightning’s personality is that she has a very witty and dry sense of humor. She can very easily lift tension through witty banter, though she doesn’t engage in it very often. She prefers the good old one-liners. She’s also smart and can think her way through whatever needs to be done. And if she can’t, she puts on a façade and does it anyway. She’s also not above kicking and punching people to get her point across, like she does to Snow and Sazh when they annoy her or get in her way.
Abilities/Weaponry/Strengths:
Abilities / Weaponry: Lightning is a warrior first, human second. She’s strong physically and also has amazing reflexes, able to catch her gunblade in one hand as Cid Raines spins it through the air at her, and is an extremely fast and efficient fighter. As military personnel, she was issued a device called a Grav-con Unit that allows her to basically defy gravity by attacking upside down and landing impossibly high jumps without a scratch. If she wants to, she can keep it activated so others can follow her leaps and land safely in the exact same place she did. It’s activated by rubbing her index finger and thumb together, and she usually does it by snapping them. She wields a gunblade, a weapon only used by experienced warriors. The original is called the Blazefire Saber, but she has an upgrade known as Lionheart. She has two accessories: Power Gloves (raising her strength) and the Royal Armlet (which helps her resist a small amount of any damage taken). Her magic and special abilities can be used through special focuses called Paradigms. They’re activated by subconscious inward shifts that prepare her for a new set of abilities. Certain abilities and magic can only be used when one specific paradigm is active and only one paradigm can be active at a time. They work kind of like Yuna’s dresspheres, only less flashy and without the clothing changes. Each paradigm lends for different abilities and even though six of them exist, Lightning can only use three: Commando (her primary, specializing in physical attacks), Ravager (specializing in magical attacks), and Medic (specializing in magical healing).
Commando: Lightning has high strength and defense stats, making this her primary paradigm.
~Blitz - deals physical damage to all foes in range. Lightning spins her blade around in a circle very quickly to hit multiple targets
~Ruin - deals non-elemental magical damage to one foe
~Lifesiphon - makes her recovery time after defeating a foe very short
~Faultsiphon - recovers speed when attacking a foe under status ailment
~Launch - When a foe has been staggered, she can launch it into the air - may or may not be effective in Paixao
~Ravage - when a Ravager is present, Blitz and Ruin are more effective
~Smite - when a launched foe is recovering from Stagger, she literally forces it from the air to the ground, making her last attack before its chain gauge resets more super effective
~Blindside - when attacking a foe not targeting her, Attack and Run become more effective
~Scourge - works like a grounded version of Smite
Ravager: She’s able to use all four elemental strike attacks (Flame, Frost, Spark, Aqua - physical attacks that add elemental magic), all first and second level elemental spells (Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Water, Aero), plus Thundaga. She has yet to reach her full ATB ability (Army of One), but perhaps sometime during her stay in Paixao she will.
~Overwhelm - the more allies attacking a target, the faster it goes down
Medic: Cannot attack, can only heal.
~Cure: Restores HP
~Cura: Restores HP all party members
~Esuna: Removes the last status effect the target suffered (except Doom)
~Raise: Removes KO status and restores small amount of HP
Strengths: Lightning doesn’t let her emotions rule her. When she joined the military, she learned how to put her emotions to the side, block them out so all that was left were her target and her will to survive. She can appear cold-blooded and ruthless at times, but this ability to ignore emotions has kept her alive on missions before. However, she also has a caring and protective side that shows up when people she cares about are threatened. She’s not afraid of much and what she does fear, she hides, preferring to blow through it. She’s also not afraid to take matters into her own hands and will quite willingly manipulate a situation to work for her.
Weaknesses: Lightning isn’t particularly weak physically, but she’s weaker against magic attacks rather than physical ones. Her biggest weakness is her love for her sister. She’d do anything for Serah, and that soon transfers over to the rest of her companions, especially Hope. She’s loyal and that loyalty could easily be used against her. She’s also just getting over being willing to feel emotions again, so dealing with those and her regret over her treatment of Serah is foremost in her mind. She also has a temper and it’s easily roused when someone doubts her or threatens her.
History:
Her parents died when she was still young and with that she changed her name from Claire Farron to Lightning, hoping she could change who she was and be strong for her sister. “Lightning. It flashes bright and then fades away. It can’t protect. It only destroys.” When she joins the military, Lightning joins the Guardian Corps, Bodhum Security Regiment, in order to keep an eye on her sister while at work.
Day 2: Lightning and Snow meet. Lightning greatly dislikes him and thinks of him as arrogant and irresponsible.
Day 11: Lightning talks with her lieutenant about the Pulse things going on in the background. He says she’s due for a promotion, but to keep her nose clean and go home for the night. PSICOM’s found something and they don’t want the Guardian Corps involved.
Day 12: Lightning’s birthday. Serah tells Lightning that she’s a l’Cie and engaged to Snow. Lightning thinks she’s making up the l’Cie part to marry Snow and drives Serah away in tears. Snow then yells at her for it and they argue before he leaves. Lightning opens the gift Serah gave her, a special survival knife, and hears a news report on the Pulse fal’Cie recently discovered in the Vestige near Bodhum. This makes her realize that Serah was telling the truth. Later, Snow explains to Lightning his plan to find out Serah’s Focus and leaves her.
Day 13: Lightning decides to find Serah and help her complete her Focus. PSICOM tells her she can’t be there and is exempt from the Purge because she’s military. She quits the military in order to join the Purge. In the line, she meets Sazh. She thinks her only chance to save Serah is to join the Purge. In line to the train, she meets Sazh and they decide to join causes, though neither really tells the other what they’re in for until it’s too late to turn back. They make their way through the Hanging Edge, where the train crashed, and learn a little about each other, at least enough to make it to the Pulse Vestige alive. Once inside, they make their way to the upper areas, where the fal’Cie Anima rests. Just in front of it, Lightning admits that her sister was made into a Pulse l’Cie and she and Sazh have an argument over killing l’Cie versus helping them. Later on, the two meet up with Snow, Vanille, and Hope just as they find Serah. Lightning wants to take her home, but Snow distracts her and Serah turns to crystal.
This, along with Snow’s annoying hero antics, prompts Lightning to punch him in her frustration and pain, and then she and Snow to go see the fal’Cie Anima. Once it becomes apparent that Snow’s begging will do nothing to help, Lightning attacks the fal’Cie and eventually they are all turned into l’Cie. The resulting explosion from the Vestige brings it and the city above crashing down to Lake Bresha, which then freezes on impact with the Vestige. They all wake up, very close to where Serah is in crystal form, and begin to realize their new power as l’Cie, while trying to figure out what the fal’Cie wants them to do, what their Focus is. Snow wants to stay with Serah, but Lightning knows they’ll just get killed if they stay and wait for the army, so she, Sazh, Hope, and Vanille leave him to dig Serah out.
Once they reach the end of Lake Bresha, they find an airship and after a long time o being chased through the air by Sanctum militia, they crash land in the Vile Peaks. Sazh and Vanille opt to stay behind and be slower, while Lightning and Hope keep going faster. Lightning ends up telling Hope that she joined the Purge willingly to save Serah. Afterwards, she climbs a cliff and leaves Hope because he can’t keep up. Later on down the road, she runs into the others, Sazh and Vanille having found Hope. A little further, they fight a Dreadnaught, Pulse armament, and fall through the ground. Here Lightning tells them her military secret: that keeping it simple, and remembering her goal, keeps her alive. Eventually, she declares that her focus now is to destroy the fal’Cie Eden, guiding light of Cocoon, and she walks off without them. Again, Hope alone follows her. She doesn’t want to babysit him, but he insists he can fight. The two run into a Pulse armament later on down the road, the exact same model as the Dreadnaught they fought earlier, and Hope manages to get it to move, taking out many enemies in their way.
Eventually, he crashes it. Lightning gets angry, as she doesn’t want to have to worry about taking care of him, too, when she’s got enough on her plate. Hope insists on staying with her and the whole thing stresses her out so badly that her l’Cie brand reacts and summons Odin, who then attacks Hope. In an effort to protect him, Lightning helps him fight Odin. Afterward, she apologizes for being hard on him and says she’ll toughen him up. Soon they stop and she looks around while he rests, coming back to keep an eye on him.
Next stop: the Gapra Whitewood, where Hope asks to take point and Lightning agrees to watch their backs. She gives him her special knife to keep him safe, an act of friendship. Later, after telling Hope about NORA and shutting out emotions, she realizes he’s just taking everything as a plot for revenge against Snow, so she tells him that Snow didn’t kill his mother: Sanctum did. So the plan becomes make it to Palumpolum, Hope’s home, tell his dad what happened, and then board the train for Eden. They agree not to destroy the Sanctum fal’Cie Carbuncle because “hungry people make for angry people.” Hope’s words about humans being pets for fal’Cie snap Lightning out of her entire focus and she admits that she might have been going on the wrong path. Once they get out of the tunnels of Palumpolum, they find themselves the targets of the military. Lightning tells Hope to survive; she’ll buy him some time. However, Fang and Snow come to their rescue. Lightning tells Snow to keep Hope safe and takes off, Fang at her heels. Fang then tells her that she’s from Gran Pulse and that this whole Pulse terror started because she and Vanille woke up from crystal stasis. And it’s their fault Serah was turned into a l’Cie, an admission Lightning hits Fang for. She and Fang bond over Fang’s past and their shared future before heading off to Hope’s house to rendezvous with Snow and Hope. Lightning and Fang interrupt Hope’s solo battle with the Ushumgal Subjugator and help him defeat it. Afterward, she and Hope bond a little more after he says Operation Nora didn’t work out. She’s proud of him for letting go of his revenge plot and promises to keep him safe. She then helps Snow to Hope’s house.
As Hope and his dad talk, Lightning watches over Snow and then apologizes to him about what she said to Serah on her birthday. After meeting Hope’s dad, the group is ambushed by Sanctum troops and have to fight their way out. Eventually, they are rescued by Cid Raines and his company of Guardian Corps. Once aboard the Lindblum, they discover that Vanille and Sazh are being held captive aboard the Palamecia and devise a rescue mission. Once on the airship, the groups fight their way to each other, and Fang and Vanille capture a flying beast so they can ride it to the top, where they meet up with Primarch Dysley and quickly discover that their long upheld government leader is actually a fal’Cie himself so they try to defeat him. In an attempt to coerce them into behaving as l’Cie ought and surrendering to their fate, he tells them the nature of their Focus: one of them will become Ragnarok and summon the Maker to destroy Cocoon. Lightning and the others say “no thanks.” After the fight, they try to follow Dysley in another smaller airship, but it has a mind of its own and crashes them into the Fifth Ark. Here they are supposed to train their powers and grow stronger so they can complete their Focus. Snow apologizes for being wrong about Serah’s Focus and Lightning tells him that even she had been taking heart in his conviction. The group agrees to keep going.
In the middle of the Fifth Ark, they run into Cid Raines again, and he tells them about Ragnarok, the fal’Cie, and human origins, informing them that he is also a l’Cie and his Focus was to set them on the right path. Now that he has done this and knows what is to come, he wants to save Cocoon… by killing them and ending their Focus. They have no choice but to fight him, but after the battle Snow hurries off alone and they follow him. At the end of the Ark, they find a dead end waiting. Snow gives a speech about continuing and saving Cocoon. Fang wants nothing to do with it and turns on the group, not wanting Vanille to turn Cie’th. Her despair summons Bahamut and Lightning helps Vanille and Fang fight him, saying they’re all fighting their Focus to the end. Bahamut’s defeat opens a path for them and they discover both an airship and a gate to Pulse. So they take both, as an escape and hopefully an answer to how to fight their Focus. Next stop: Gran Pulse. “Off to hell we go.”
While the others are off scouting and resting, Hope plays with Sazh’s baby chocobo until he exhausts himself. His despair when he wakes up, and his desire for them to leave him behind so he doesn’t slow them down summon Alexander. After defeating it, he agrees to follow along as the others refuse to leave him behind. They’ve decided to find the village of Oerba, Fang and Vanille’s home and the place where the Pulse fal’Cie lay dreaming, in an effort to find answers to their plight. On the way, Vanille admits to having become Ragnarok and cracking Cocoon’s shell. Their path to Oerba leads them through the underground tunnels. Hope finds another Dreadnaught and gives Lightning déjà vu by riding it. Eventually, the rolling fal’Cie Atomos is stopped and the party hitches a ride to the outside. Once above ground, Lightning and Snow have a chance to talk. She finds him on a cliff top, talking to Serah’s tear. They talk about Serah and Lightning finally fully accepts her sister’s engagement to him and says that he’d better not let Serah down. When he lets in a moment of doubt, Lightning sticks her fist against his back and tells him to let go of his doubt, letting a few tears fall behind his back. They agree to save Cocoon and go see Serah together. After that, it’s time to rest. Lightning goes to sleep and wakes up in Paixao.
Lightning is strong and able. Being a member of the military since she graduated from high school, Lightning knows how to use her brains and her brawn to get what she wants. She’s a hard nut to crack at first, but once she allows someone to get to know her, they can see she’s actually a caring individual. Her main focus is on protecting her little sister, Serah, though over the years in her military work, she became more and more focused on her job rather than her sister. Her biggest regret is that she didn’t trust Serah and that she thinks Serah didn’t trust her. Regardless, Serah was always important to Lightning and the older sister would fight with everything she had to protect the younger girl. That protective streak shows up later as Lightning forges bonds with other people, namely her fellow l’Cie, though she ends up treating Hope as a younger brother, supporting him where she can.
Overshadowing that protective streak is her lone wolf nature. At first, Lightning prefers to work alone and she understands it better; however as the game goes on she learns how to make use of her comrades. Her biggest issue is with trust. It’s hard for her to trust and accept people, and once she’s decided she doesn’t like someone, it takes a lot for her to turn that around. Snow is a prime example. Over half the game passes before she even dreams of accepting his relationship with Serah. Lightning’s defense mechanism is anger. When something happens that hurts her or someone she cares about, she gets mad. Attack first, ask questions later, like when she punches Snow for being an idiot in the beginning of the game or when she goes after the fal’Cie Anima. Getting angry hides the pain, buries it deep inside, and makes it easier to bear. She does come to let up on that anger, showing that she cares about everyone and what’s happened to them.
Through it all, Lightning’s concern is for Serah first and fighting fate second. She hates feeling boxed in by fate and being forced to do something, especially since Cocoon is her home. She doesn’t like being called, or forced to be, an enemy of Cocoon any more than she likes having her life planned for her. At one point, all she knew was the life of a soldier: do what you’re told, focus on your orders. Now, she understands the importance of choosing her own goal as well as focusing on it. Her Focus now is to fight fate, fight Dysley and the fal’Cie. She doesn’t give up, even when things look hopeless. What she doesn’t admit until she and Snow have their talk on Gran Pulse is that she actually takes Snow’s heroics to heart. His words about seeing Serah again someday and that she’s alive give Lightning the hope and courage to carry on with her goal and see it through to the end.
The underappreciated fact about Lightning’s personality is that she has a very witty and dry sense of humor. She can very easily lift tension through witty banter, though she doesn’t engage in it very often. She prefers the good old one-liners. She’s also smart and can think her way through whatever needs to be done. And if she can’t, she puts on a façade and does it anyway. She’s also not above kicking and punching people to get her point across, like she does to Snow and Sazh when they annoy her or get in her way.
Abilities/Weaponry/Strengths:
Abilities / Weaponry: Lightning is a warrior first, human second. She’s strong physically and also has amazing reflexes, able to catch her gunblade in one hand as Cid Raines spins it through the air at her, and is an extremely fast and efficient fighter. As military personnel, she was issued a device called a Grav-con Unit that allows her to basically defy gravity by attacking upside down and landing impossibly high jumps without a scratch. If she wants to, she can keep it activated so others can follow her leaps and land safely in the exact same place she did. It’s activated by rubbing her index finger and thumb together, and she usually does it by snapping them. She wields a gunblade, a weapon only used by experienced warriors. The original is called the Blazefire Saber, but she has an upgrade known as Lionheart. She has two accessories: Power Gloves (raising her strength) and the Royal Armlet (which helps her resist a small amount of any damage taken). Her magic and special abilities can be used through special focuses called Paradigms. They’re activated by subconscious inward shifts that prepare her for a new set of abilities. Certain abilities and magic can only be used when one specific paradigm is active and only one paradigm can be active at a time. They work kind of like Yuna’s dresspheres, only less flashy and without the clothing changes. Each paradigm lends for different abilities and even though six of them exist, Lightning can only use three: Commando (her primary, specializing in physical attacks), Ravager (specializing in magical attacks), and Medic (specializing in magical healing).
Commando: Lightning has high strength and defense stats, making this her primary paradigm.
~Blitz - deals physical damage to all foes in range. Lightning spins her blade around in a circle very quickly to hit multiple targets
~Ruin - deals non-elemental magical damage to one foe
~Lifesiphon - makes her recovery time after defeating a foe very short
~Faultsiphon - recovers speed when attacking a foe under status ailment
~Launch - When a foe has been staggered, she can launch it into the air - may or may not be effective in Paixao
~Ravage - when a Ravager is present, Blitz and Ruin are more effective
~Smite - when a launched foe is recovering from Stagger, she literally forces it from the air to the ground, making her last attack before its chain gauge resets more super effective
~Blindside - when attacking a foe not targeting her, Attack and Run become more effective
~Scourge - works like a grounded version of Smite
Ravager: She’s able to use all four elemental strike attacks (Flame, Frost, Spark, Aqua - physical attacks that add elemental magic), all first and second level elemental spells (Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Water, Aero), plus Thundaga. She has yet to reach her full ATB ability (Army of One), but perhaps sometime during her stay in Paixao she will.
~Overwhelm - the more allies attacking a target, the faster it goes down
Medic: Cannot attack, can only heal.
~Cure: Restores HP
~Cura: Restores HP all party members
~Esuna: Removes the last status effect the target suffered (except Doom)
~Raise: Removes KO status and restores small amount of HP
Strengths: Lightning doesn’t let her emotions rule her. When she joined the military, she learned how to put her emotions to the side, block them out so all that was left were her target and her will to survive. She can appear cold-blooded and ruthless at times, but this ability to ignore emotions has kept her alive on missions before. However, she also has a caring and protective side that shows up when people she cares about are threatened. She’s not afraid of much and what she does fear, she hides, preferring to blow through it. She’s also not afraid to take matters into her own hands and will quite willingly manipulate a situation to work for her.
Weaknesses: Lightning isn’t particularly weak physically, but she’s weaker against magic attacks rather than physical ones. Her biggest weakness is her love for her sister. She’d do anything for Serah, and that soon transfers over to the rest of her companions, especially Hope. She’s loyal and that loyalty could easily be used against her. She’s also just getting over being willing to feel emotions again, so dealing with those and her regret over her treatment of Serah is foremost in her mind. She also has a temper and it’s easily roused when someone doubts her or threatens her.
History:
Her parents died when she was still young and with that she changed her name from Claire Farron to Lightning, hoping she could change who she was and be strong for her sister. “Lightning. It flashes bright and then fades away. It can’t protect. It only destroys.” When she joins the military, Lightning joins the Guardian Corps, Bodhum Security Regiment, in order to keep an eye on her sister while at work.
Day 2: Lightning and Snow meet. Lightning greatly dislikes him and thinks of him as arrogant and irresponsible.
Day 11: Lightning talks with her lieutenant about the Pulse things going on in the background. He says she’s due for a promotion, but to keep her nose clean and go home for the night. PSICOM’s found something and they don’t want the Guardian Corps involved.
Day 12: Lightning’s birthday. Serah tells Lightning that she’s a l’Cie and engaged to Snow. Lightning thinks she’s making up the l’Cie part to marry Snow and drives Serah away in tears. Snow then yells at her for it and they argue before he leaves. Lightning opens the gift Serah gave her, a special survival knife, and hears a news report on the Pulse fal’Cie recently discovered in the Vestige near Bodhum. This makes her realize that Serah was telling the truth. Later, Snow explains to Lightning his plan to find out Serah’s Focus and leaves her.
Day 13: Lightning decides to find Serah and help her complete her Focus. PSICOM tells her she can’t be there and is exempt from the Purge because she’s military. She quits the military in order to join the Purge. In the line, she meets Sazh. She thinks her only chance to save Serah is to join the Purge. In line to the train, she meets Sazh and they decide to join causes, though neither really tells the other what they’re in for until it’s too late to turn back. They make their way through the Hanging Edge, where the train crashed, and learn a little about each other, at least enough to make it to the Pulse Vestige alive. Once inside, they make their way to the upper areas, where the fal’Cie Anima rests. Just in front of it, Lightning admits that her sister was made into a Pulse l’Cie and she and Sazh have an argument over killing l’Cie versus helping them. Later on, the two meet up with Snow, Vanille, and Hope just as they find Serah. Lightning wants to take her home, but Snow distracts her and Serah turns to crystal.
This, along with Snow’s annoying hero antics, prompts Lightning to punch him in her frustration and pain, and then she and Snow to go see the fal’Cie Anima. Once it becomes apparent that Snow’s begging will do nothing to help, Lightning attacks the fal’Cie and eventually they are all turned into l’Cie. The resulting explosion from the Vestige brings it and the city above crashing down to Lake Bresha, which then freezes on impact with the Vestige. They all wake up, very close to where Serah is in crystal form, and begin to realize their new power as l’Cie, while trying to figure out what the fal’Cie wants them to do, what their Focus is. Snow wants to stay with Serah, but Lightning knows they’ll just get killed if they stay and wait for the army, so she, Sazh, Hope, and Vanille leave him to dig Serah out.
Once they reach the end of Lake Bresha, they find an airship and after a long time o being chased through the air by Sanctum militia, they crash land in the Vile Peaks. Sazh and Vanille opt to stay behind and be slower, while Lightning and Hope keep going faster. Lightning ends up telling Hope that she joined the Purge willingly to save Serah. Afterwards, she climbs a cliff and leaves Hope because he can’t keep up. Later on down the road, she runs into the others, Sazh and Vanille having found Hope. A little further, they fight a Dreadnaught, Pulse armament, and fall through the ground. Here Lightning tells them her military secret: that keeping it simple, and remembering her goal, keeps her alive. Eventually, she declares that her focus now is to destroy the fal’Cie Eden, guiding light of Cocoon, and she walks off without them. Again, Hope alone follows her. She doesn’t want to babysit him, but he insists he can fight. The two run into a Pulse armament later on down the road, the exact same model as the Dreadnaught they fought earlier, and Hope manages to get it to move, taking out many enemies in their way.
Eventually, he crashes it. Lightning gets angry, as she doesn’t want to have to worry about taking care of him, too, when she’s got enough on her plate. Hope insists on staying with her and the whole thing stresses her out so badly that her l’Cie brand reacts and summons Odin, who then attacks Hope. In an effort to protect him, Lightning helps him fight Odin. Afterward, she apologizes for being hard on him and says she’ll toughen him up. Soon they stop and she looks around while he rests, coming back to keep an eye on him.
Next stop: the Gapra Whitewood, where Hope asks to take point and Lightning agrees to watch their backs. She gives him her special knife to keep him safe, an act of friendship. Later, after telling Hope about NORA and shutting out emotions, she realizes he’s just taking everything as a plot for revenge against Snow, so she tells him that Snow didn’t kill his mother: Sanctum did. So the plan becomes make it to Palumpolum, Hope’s home, tell his dad what happened, and then board the train for Eden. They agree not to destroy the Sanctum fal’Cie Carbuncle because “hungry people make for angry people.” Hope’s words about humans being pets for fal’Cie snap Lightning out of her entire focus and she admits that she might have been going on the wrong path. Once they get out of the tunnels of Palumpolum, they find themselves the targets of the military. Lightning tells Hope to survive; she’ll buy him some time. However, Fang and Snow come to their rescue. Lightning tells Snow to keep Hope safe and takes off, Fang at her heels. Fang then tells her that she’s from Gran Pulse and that this whole Pulse terror started because she and Vanille woke up from crystal stasis. And it’s their fault Serah was turned into a l’Cie, an admission Lightning hits Fang for. She and Fang bond over Fang’s past and their shared future before heading off to Hope’s house to rendezvous with Snow and Hope. Lightning and Fang interrupt Hope’s solo battle with the Ushumgal Subjugator and help him defeat it. Afterward, she and Hope bond a little more after he says Operation Nora didn’t work out. She’s proud of him for letting go of his revenge plot and promises to keep him safe. She then helps Snow to Hope’s house.
As Hope and his dad talk, Lightning watches over Snow and then apologizes to him about what she said to Serah on her birthday. After meeting Hope’s dad, the group is ambushed by Sanctum troops and have to fight their way out. Eventually, they are rescued by Cid Raines and his company of Guardian Corps. Once aboard the Lindblum, they discover that Vanille and Sazh are being held captive aboard the Palamecia and devise a rescue mission. Once on the airship, the groups fight their way to each other, and Fang and Vanille capture a flying beast so they can ride it to the top, where they meet up with Primarch Dysley and quickly discover that their long upheld government leader is actually a fal’Cie himself so they try to defeat him. In an attempt to coerce them into behaving as l’Cie ought and surrendering to their fate, he tells them the nature of their Focus: one of them will become Ragnarok and summon the Maker to destroy Cocoon. Lightning and the others say “no thanks.” After the fight, they try to follow Dysley in another smaller airship, but it has a mind of its own and crashes them into the Fifth Ark. Here they are supposed to train their powers and grow stronger so they can complete their Focus. Snow apologizes for being wrong about Serah’s Focus and Lightning tells him that even she had been taking heart in his conviction. The group agrees to keep going.
In the middle of the Fifth Ark, they run into Cid Raines again, and he tells them about Ragnarok, the fal’Cie, and human origins, informing them that he is also a l’Cie and his Focus was to set them on the right path. Now that he has done this and knows what is to come, he wants to save Cocoon… by killing them and ending their Focus. They have no choice but to fight him, but after the battle Snow hurries off alone and they follow him. At the end of the Ark, they find a dead end waiting. Snow gives a speech about continuing and saving Cocoon. Fang wants nothing to do with it and turns on the group, not wanting Vanille to turn Cie’th. Her despair summons Bahamut and Lightning helps Vanille and Fang fight him, saying they’re all fighting their Focus to the end. Bahamut’s defeat opens a path for them and they discover both an airship and a gate to Pulse. So they take both, as an escape and hopefully an answer to how to fight their Focus. Next stop: Gran Pulse. “Off to hell we go.”
While the others are off scouting and resting, Hope plays with Sazh’s baby chocobo until he exhausts himself. His despair when he wakes up, and his desire for them to leave him behind so he doesn’t slow them down summon Alexander. After defeating it, he agrees to follow along as the others refuse to leave him behind. They’ve decided to find the village of Oerba, Fang and Vanille’s home and the place where the Pulse fal’Cie lay dreaming, in an effort to find answers to their plight. On the way, Vanille admits to having become Ragnarok and cracking Cocoon’s shell. Their path to Oerba leads them through the underground tunnels. Hope finds another Dreadnaught and gives Lightning déjà vu by riding it. Eventually, the rolling fal’Cie Atomos is stopped and the party hitches a ride to the outside. Once above ground, Lightning and Snow have a chance to talk. She finds him on a cliff top, talking to Serah’s tear. They talk about Serah and Lightning finally fully accepts her sister’s engagement to him and says that he’d better not let Serah down. When he lets in a moment of doubt, Lightning sticks her fist against his back and tells him to let go of his doubt, letting a few tears fall behind his back. They agree to save Cocoon and go see Serah together. After that, it’s time to rest. Lightning goes to sleep and wakes up in Paixao.