Application
PLAYER INFORMATION-
Name/Nickname: Jim
AIM: Celapaleis
LJ: Carnifex_Atrox
Basic Character Info
Canon Character and Series: Oerba Yun Fang, Final Fantasy XIII.
In-Game Name: Oerba Yun Fang.
Age: 321, but appears to be 21.
Gender: Female
Position & Ship (first and second choice for position please): The Convoy, Pilot.
Appearance: Fang is a young woman who stands at 5'9" and looks very fit and athletic. Her hair is dark and wavy, her eyes are the kind of piercing green usually seen on fairer people and her skin has the obvious sun-darkened tone of somebody clearly used to being outdoors rather than inside. She has a tattoo on each arm. The one on her left is a large and vaguely face-like tribal pattern inked in black. The one on her right is a more intricate and almost square design made up of lines. Once black, it is now white and distorted, as though frozen. She also has a beauty mark below her right eye and a few scars above the white tattoo.
She, at first glance, is decidedly feminine and rather pretty in that she wears her hair long and dresses in a flowing, mid-blue and finely embroidered silken Sari edged with gold. She also wears a few items of jewellery. Her earrings are fang-shaped and coloured to match her clothing, she wears a number of metal bangles and a braided leather armlet just below the white tattoo. The necklaces that she wears, two of them, are beads on leather and thread, instead of expensive silver or gold chains.
As the nature of her jewellery hints, she is all for practicality. While her hair is long, yes, it is also pushed back off her face with no real care. She has some small braids, which she tucks behind her ears, entirely to keep any stray bits from obscuring her vision. Her shoes, rather than being pretty and decorative to match her Sari are shin-high leather sandals and, under her other clothing, she wears a practical black-cropped top and a pair of shorts, as to not hinder movement. She has a forearm protector on both arms and the pelt-adorned belt around her waist has a tube-like holster on the back into which she slots her staff.
Personality: Fang is brash, sarcastic and straight talking, with little desire to dance around a subject when speaking plainly will get her to the desired result much more quickly. When diplomacy fails, she is not averse to waving her double-bladed staff in somebody's face to bring people around to her way of thinking. She is cocksure and confident in general, and doubly so in her ability to fight. She is fearless, very proud and dislikes having to back down from a battle for any reason.
She can be quite a violent person, and has a certain love of combat, particularly against strong opponents, but that isn't to say that she is a nasty one.
To the contrary, she has the ability to be fiercely loyal and, when you take the above paragraph into consideration, 'fierce' is something of an understatement. She can be deeply caring and compassionate and will even go out of her way to reassure, protect and otherwise look after those who she has grown to care about. That isn't to say that she will turn into a soft-touch, however. Oh, no. She will stand up to her friends as soon as stand up to her enemies if she thinks they are doing something foolish, all in an attempt to keep them from hurting themselves. Though extremely independent, she can and will take orders if she is in a position that requires it.
Fang is slightly flirtatious too, but it tends to be in a playful (and sometimes intimidating) way, rather than serious. She is also very slightly superstitious, going as far as to believe wholeheartedly in Luck, despite having worked for everything she's ever achieved in life.
Abilities/Weapons: Firstly, it is worth pointing out that Fang is a person, or creature, known as a l'Cie. Forced from a normal to essentially Demihuman state by something that happened in her past, she was branded with the mark of a fal'Cie, though the circumstances of such will all be mentioned in her history. The l'Cie mark is the white tattoo on her right upper-arm and, instead of it being penned in ink with a needle, it is a brand done with ground Mana Crystals. It used to act as a timer for those marked with it and though it would originally have no arrows, more and more would appear the closer they got to the cut off point. When the red eye in the middle opened, their time was up and they were cursed to become crystalline zombie-like creatures called Cie'th due to a reaction with the Mana Crystals used to make the brand. Fang's is frozen, so this is not a worry for her. That said, she is still 'blessed' with the powers and abilities of a l'Cie.
l'Cie are physically stronger than regular humans as a side-effect of the Mana crystals used in their creation. They are also more resistant to damage and can survive things like high falls much more easily than normal people. They are extremely hardy and recover more quickly from serious attacks than normal folk do, similar to other 'late-onset' demihumans such as Jagers or Arrancar.
Fang's main talent is hand-to-hand combat. While she can get by unarmed and really pack a punch, she is much more comfortable using her weapon of choice, which happens to be a long, double-bladed lance. Red in colour and adorned with writing in a language no longer in use, it can be used either as a traditional polearm, or broken into three connected pieces, to be used as a three-section staff. The four blades on both ends of the weapon can be folded back onto the shaft, to shorten the length for easy transportation. Extensive practice has made her very skilled with it.
Another upside of being marked as a l'Cie is the ability to use basic elemental magic by using a Mana Crystal linked to her powers. Fang's crystal is pinkish red in colour and, unsurprisingly, fang-shaped. She doesn't tend to use magic, preferring the putting-the-boot-in (well, staff) method of battle, but she has the ability to use Wind, Fire, Water and Air magic effectively, but of a fairly low level. All of the spells she can use are of the typical projectile type and are much more effective close up, with the exception of Water, which requires a source before she can use it.
Lastly, she has the ability to call forth a creature known as an Eidolon. Born from a l'Cie losing faith in themselves or being unsure of the path which they should follow concerning their Focus, they appear when a l'Cie needs them most, either to reaffirm the path they walk or put them out of their misery. They are personal to each branded individual and assumed to be a manifestation of their inner turmoil and, later, inner strength. Eidolons are, basically, summons. After their initial activation they are sealed into the Mana Crystals that the l'Cie carry. In order to summon the Eidolon, the Crystal must be smashed, thus freeing the beast. The Crystal, of course, reforms once the Eidolon is dismissed, or gets defeated.
Bahamut is Fang's Eidolon. He is a black and purple humanoid dragon and is roughly twice her height. Bahamut fights mostly physically, with punches and swipes from his long claws being the main attacks he will go for. He can and will use a sort of projectile blast of the Wind element, but that uses up a lot of energy and gets considerably weaker the further it travels. It can also be deflected and has absolutely no effect on non-organic material, except for blowing it about a bit.
Bahamut, as a creature of magic, doesn't seem to be entirely organic. While dragon-shaped, he has a definite metallic quality to his skin and form and has the ability to transform into 'Gestalt Mode' whereby he becomes something resembling a draconic glider, which Fang can then ride on. Nowhere near as good as a modern plane, he is nevertheless good transport in a pinch and could come in useful if any ship she joins happens to be a little low on pilots.
How well can your character hack?: Not at all.
Weaknesses: While Fang may have higher than average endurance and strength compared to normal people, she is still as fleshy as one and is just as able to be stabbed, shot, slashed, gashed, cut, maimed, squashed and, in the end, killed, as everybody else. While she heals much faster than normal folk, it is a draining process and she cannot recover from fatal injuries such as a cut throat, heart damage or serious head trauma. Also, the more serious an injury is, the longer she takes to recover from it.
As well as that, she is from a time long before the current one and although little surprises her about modern Reial, there is a lot she is unfamiliar with and she is not yet really naturalised. She picks up certain things quickly and has taken to some of the technology like a duck to water, but not all of it. There is rather a lot to learn, after all. The nature of weapons has changed a lot since her time, especially in a being-much-stronger-than-back-then way and especially when it comes to firearms. She doesn't have the instinctive fear of the danger that people born to the current age do and that in itself is a major, life-threatening weakness.
Her weapon is also unsuited to closed-in combat. Her combat abilities were honed in the Badlands, which lends itself well to wide sweeps and wild swings of a polearm. In corridors or similarly closed in spaces, she is much less able to fight than she would otherwise be. Unlocking the weapon and using it in the three segments is possible, but the position required for this to be effective is also extremely limiting.
Another one of her potential downfalls is her arrogance. So confident in her abilities as a warrior, it is dangerously easy for her to underestimate her opponents. Given the above weakness, this is especially problematic. Her inability, stubbornness or unwillingness to back down in a bad situation could get her seriously injured or worse.
In a similar vein, her bad temper can often get the better of her, as can her desire to protect those she loves. Bad decisions can easily arise from the latter, if she gets close enough to somebody for her to consider them worth protecting. She can and will put herself in mortal danger for her friends.
Although she can use magic, she is not at all proficient with it. It tends towards being weak, or difficult to control. She doesn't tend to use it, except in dire situations, but it is dangerous for her to fall back on given her lack of practice. The spells are only effective at fairly close range and get weaker the further away the target is. The spells also rely on her own energy, so she can't use it if she is already tired or using a lot of energy on healing an injury.
Bahamut, her Eidolon or summon, also has his own weaknesses. The first of which is him being on a sort of timer. He can only stay corporeal in battle-form for a certain amount of time, five minutes is the average, and this shortens depending how much damage he takes. When that time is up, he will be instantly dismissed. There is more leeway for how long he can be kept in this world if he is in Gestalt mode, because he is not in a combat situation where he can suffer damage.
Due to being Air elemental, he is especially weak to lightning magic, meaning that up against a mage, witch, wizard, bender or just somebody especially good with that particular spell, he is at an instant disadvantage. As well as that, he is able to be cut and injured just like anything else, and when his energy has been depleted enough by attacks from an enemy, he will be automatically dismissed. While extremely useful, he is not as hardy as one would imagine.
In his glider form, there are numerous downsides. While it is a useful method of travel, Fang will, as mentioned, have to be in a suitable condition to summon him in the first place. Also, the lack of... well, roof, that a plane of a similar size and speed would have is missing, making flying on him dangerous at high speeds. On top of that, it is difficult for her to battle on him in that form, given the potential for her to hit him accidentally instead of the enemy. That, and the aforementioned balance issue makes it rather awkward.
Given the Crystal activated qualities of both her Magical abilities and her Eidolon, if she doesn't have the Crystal on her, or if she not in a position to smash it to summon Bahamut, she cannot use them.
History: Three hundred years ago, the Vohemaro war of independence was in full swing and scuffles between those fighting for and against it were common. Fang's town, Oerba, was a badlands outpost that was still siding with Ivona. War between them and the would-be Vohemaro rebels had taken her parents from her, but the town orphanage was home. The atmosphere was friendly and positive despite the recent and unfortunate battles and the ever encroaching monsters on the border. It wasn't a safe place to live, but she learned to deal with the threat of monsters and banded together with her friends against them and people of rival towns who tried to convince them to switch side. It was then that she learned to fight.
Soon, something worse than war struck. A person, be him a man or god, nobody was entirely sure, presented himself to the people, asking for volunteers to squash the colonists who were fighting for independence. It sounded ideal. He called himself a fal'Cie, one of a small number of people with certain, magical abilities, but he acted like a deity. People came. They were branded with his mark and did what he asked, becoming l'Cie -- enhanced humans in his service.
Physically stronger than normal humans and able to tap into magic previously unavailable to them, they embraced the task of helping to half the rebellion. He and the other fal'Cie took advantage of that and set each of them a task, or Focus, and, if they completed it, they would be granted eternal life as a reward. As with all too-good-be-true deals, he turned out to be something of a conman. He failed to mention that their so-called eternal life would be spent in a crystal form, making the successful l'Cie a living statue. If they failed, they would become Cie'th, the crystalline walking dead, as punishment.
It became apparent that the other side had fal'Cie also. It was unclear whether they were genuinely opposed or simply taking advantage of the chaotic situation that the war brought about. Whichever it was, it wasn't long before the fal'Cie started arguing between themselves.
They began to set their l'Cie on each other.
Before too long, the demand for volunteers outweighed the supply considerably. People realised that they were being used and that they were steadily losing what hold they had on the colonial land, but they were taken by force by the fal'Cie and given no choice in becoming their servants by being branded against their will. Regardless of whether or not they wanted to fight that silly war, the l'Cie could do nothing to change their fates. It was turn Cie'th, die or succeed and become a Crystal. It didn't take long for the numbers of people in the towns to deplete due to that method of call-up.
Fang was one of the last to be branded. Marked and given the task of becoming a monster called 'Ragnarok', she was given the Focus of attacking and destroying an important rebel centre, and she set her course to do just that. She had lost too many friends to give up without a fight. She didn't care about what happened to those people so long as she didn't end up Cie'th. It was considered to be fate worse than death. Anybody that had heard the mournful, hateful cries of those cursed with a crystalline form would agree.
The target was a long way away, but she honed her skills with her spear in the Badlands as she travelled, meeting some interesting people as she travelled. Along the way, she started to doubt whether completing her Focus was worth it, whether the guilt of killing people like that was worth living with, regardless of what she would become if that happened. That was when Bahamut came for her, to either set her straight or kill her off. Considering she's not dead, it's quite clear that she beat him and reaffirmed her decision. He became her Eidolon.
It took time, but she finally reached her destination; the town of Cocoon. She felt no guilt. It was her or them -- if she managed to do the job, important members of the Vohemaro rebellion would be crushed and they would win. She was prepared to become the monster she needed to be to do the task. She steeled herself.
She doesn't remember what happened. She can't remember a thing from then on. She knows that she must have done what the fal'Cie asked of her, because when she awoke, it was three hundred years later. It wasn't as she had expected, though. Despite being freed from the fate of a l'Cie and having been rewarded with so-called eternal life, she realised that her efforts hadn't prevented Vohemar becoming a nation in its own right. Her efforts had been fruitless.
It took her a while to figure that out -- the world had changed considerably in the time that had past while she was in a Crystal sleep. Oerba was gone -- when Fang found it, and how she searched, all that remained was a long forgotten wreck of her home, half-buried in sand. That and the addition of a new country weren't the only things that had changed. Her brand, once black against her skin was now white and frozen. The magical 'timer' on it had been effectively disabled and she no longer had to worry about turning Cie'th. Perhaps that happened to all l'Cie who had completed their Focuses -- she'd never know.
Seeing little reason to stick around in the Badlands, Fang made it her business to learn as much about the world as it was as she could. She had to learn to get by. She was still, thanks to the crystal stasis, a young woman. Still, she held on to her l'Cie strength and survived the Badlands monsters. They were more numerous than they had once been, but no more difficult to dispatch.
She familiarised herself with the language, the culture, the newer festivals and the advances that civilisation had made in her long absence. She took on some jobs for money, mostly of the physical (not -that- kind of physical) kind and eventually bought herself a Difference Engine. It seemed like a must-have gadget and was, the salesman had said, extremely useful. When that was out of the way, she resolved to find herself a more permanent job and, she had heard, an Airship was the best place for this.
Concrit? Comments? Anything?
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Name/Nickname: Jim
AIM: Celapaleis
LJ: Carnifex_Atrox
Basic Character Info
Canon Character and Series: Oerba Yun Fang, Final Fantasy XIII.
In-Game Name: Oerba Yun Fang.
Age: 321, but appears to be 21.
Gender: Female
Position & Ship (first and second choice for position please): The Convoy, Pilot.
Appearance: Fang is a young woman who stands at 5'9" and looks very fit and athletic. Her hair is dark and wavy, her eyes are the kind of piercing green usually seen on fairer people and her skin has the obvious sun-darkened tone of somebody clearly used to being outdoors rather than inside. She has a tattoo on each arm. The one on her left is a large and vaguely face-like tribal pattern inked in black. The one on her right is a more intricate and almost square design made up of lines. Once black, it is now white and distorted, as though frozen. She also has a beauty mark below her right eye and a few scars above the white tattoo.
She, at first glance, is decidedly feminine and rather pretty in that she wears her hair long and dresses in a flowing, mid-blue and finely embroidered silken Sari edged with gold. She also wears a few items of jewellery. Her earrings are fang-shaped and coloured to match her clothing, she wears a number of metal bangles and a braided leather armlet just below the white tattoo. The necklaces that she wears, two of them, are beads on leather and thread, instead of expensive silver or gold chains.
As the nature of her jewellery hints, she is all for practicality. While her hair is long, yes, it is also pushed back off her face with no real care. She has some small braids, which she tucks behind her ears, entirely to keep any stray bits from obscuring her vision. Her shoes, rather than being pretty and decorative to match her Sari are shin-high leather sandals and, under her other clothing, she wears a practical black-cropped top and a pair of shorts, as to not hinder movement. She has a forearm protector on both arms and the pelt-adorned belt around her waist has a tube-like holster on the back into which she slots her staff.
Personality: Fang is brash, sarcastic and straight talking, with little desire to dance around a subject when speaking plainly will get her to the desired result much more quickly. When diplomacy fails, she is not averse to waving her double-bladed staff in somebody's face to bring people around to her way of thinking. She is cocksure and confident in general, and doubly so in her ability to fight. She is fearless, very proud and dislikes having to back down from a battle for any reason.
She can be quite a violent person, and has a certain love of combat, particularly against strong opponents, but that isn't to say that she is a nasty one.
To the contrary, she has the ability to be fiercely loyal and, when you take the above paragraph into consideration, 'fierce' is something of an understatement. She can be deeply caring and compassionate and will even go out of her way to reassure, protect and otherwise look after those who she has grown to care about. That isn't to say that she will turn into a soft-touch, however. Oh, no. She will stand up to her friends as soon as stand up to her enemies if she thinks they are doing something foolish, all in an attempt to keep them from hurting themselves. Though extremely independent, she can and will take orders if she is in a position that requires it.
Fang is slightly flirtatious too, but it tends to be in a playful (and sometimes intimidating) way, rather than serious. She is also very slightly superstitious, going as far as to believe wholeheartedly in Luck, despite having worked for everything she's ever achieved in life.
Abilities/Weapons: Firstly, it is worth pointing out that Fang is a person, or creature, known as a l'Cie. Forced from a normal to essentially Demihuman state by something that happened in her past, she was branded with the mark of a fal'Cie, though the circumstances of such will all be mentioned in her history. The l'Cie mark is the white tattoo on her right upper-arm and, instead of it being penned in ink with a needle, it is a brand done with ground Mana Crystals. It used to act as a timer for those marked with it and though it would originally have no arrows, more and more would appear the closer they got to the cut off point. When the red eye in the middle opened, their time was up and they were cursed to become crystalline zombie-like creatures called Cie'th due to a reaction with the Mana Crystals used to make the brand. Fang's is frozen, so this is not a worry for her. That said, she is still 'blessed' with the powers and abilities of a l'Cie.
l'Cie are physically stronger than regular humans as a side-effect of the Mana crystals used in their creation. They are also more resistant to damage and can survive things like high falls much more easily than normal people. They are extremely hardy and recover more quickly from serious attacks than normal folk do, similar to other 'late-onset' demihumans such as Jagers or Arrancar.
Fang's main talent is hand-to-hand combat. While she can get by unarmed and really pack a punch, she is much more comfortable using her weapon of choice, which happens to be a long, double-bladed lance. Red in colour and adorned with writing in a language no longer in use, it can be used either as a traditional polearm, or broken into three connected pieces, to be used as a three-section staff. The four blades on both ends of the weapon can be folded back onto the shaft, to shorten the length for easy transportation. Extensive practice has made her very skilled with it.
Another upside of being marked as a l'Cie is the ability to use basic elemental magic by using a Mana Crystal linked to her powers. Fang's crystal is pinkish red in colour and, unsurprisingly, fang-shaped. She doesn't tend to use magic, preferring the putting-the-boot-in (well, staff) method of battle, but she has the ability to use Wind, Fire, Water and Air magic effectively, but of a fairly low level. All of the spells she can use are of the typical projectile type and are much more effective close up, with the exception of Water, which requires a source before she can use it.
Lastly, she has the ability to call forth a creature known as an Eidolon. Born from a l'Cie losing faith in themselves or being unsure of the path which they should follow concerning their Focus, they appear when a l'Cie needs them most, either to reaffirm the path they walk or put them out of their misery. They are personal to each branded individual and assumed to be a manifestation of their inner turmoil and, later, inner strength. Eidolons are, basically, summons. After their initial activation they are sealed into the Mana Crystals that the l'Cie carry. In order to summon the Eidolon, the Crystal must be smashed, thus freeing the beast. The Crystal, of course, reforms once the Eidolon is dismissed, or gets defeated.
Bahamut is Fang's Eidolon. He is a black and purple humanoid dragon and is roughly twice her height. Bahamut fights mostly physically, with punches and swipes from his long claws being the main attacks he will go for. He can and will use a sort of projectile blast of the Wind element, but that uses up a lot of energy and gets considerably weaker the further it travels. It can also be deflected and has absolutely no effect on non-organic material, except for blowing it about a bit.
Bahamut, as a creature of magic, doesn't seem to be entirely organic. While dragon-shaped, he has a definite metallic quality to his skin and form and has the ability to transform into 'Gestalt Mode' whereby he becomes something resembling a draconic glider, which Fang can then ride on. Nowhere near as good as a modern plane, he is nevertheless good transport in a pinch and could come in useful if any ship she joins happens to be a little low on pilots.
How well can your character hack?: Not at all.
Weaknesses: While Fang may have higher than average endurance and strength compared to normal people, she is still as fleshy as one and is just as able to be stabbed, shot, slashed, gashed, cut, maimed, squashed and, in the end, killed, as everybody else. While she heals much faster than normal folk, it is a draining process and she cannot recover from fatal injuries such as a cut throat, heart damage or serious head trauma. Also, the more serious an injury is, the longer she takes to recover from it.
As well as that, she is from a time long before the current one and although little surprises her about modern Reial, there is a lot she is unfamiliar with and she is not yet really naturalised. She picks up certain things quickly and has taken to some of the technology like a duck to water, but not all of it. There is rather a lot to learn, after all. The nature of weapons has changed a lot since her time, especially in a being-much-stronger-than-back-then way and especially when it comes to firearms. She doesn't have the instinctive fear of the danger that people born to the current age do and that in itself is a major, life-threatening weakness.
Her weapon is also unsuited to closed-in combat. Her combat abilities were honed in the Badlands, which lends itself well to wide sweeps and wild swings of a polearm. In corridors or similarly closed in spaces, she is much less able to fight than she would otherwise be. Unlocking the weapon and using it in the three segments is possible, but the position required for this to be effective is also extremely limiting.
Another one of her potential downfalls is her arrogance. So confident in her abilities as a warrior, it is dangerously easy for her to underestimate her opponents. Given the above weakness, this is especially problematic. Her inability, stubbornness or unwillingness to back down in a bad situation could get her seriously injured or worse.
In a similar vein, her bad temper can often get the better of her, as can her desire to protect those she loves. Bad decisions can easily arise from the latter, if she gets close enough to somebody for her to consider them worth protecting. She can and will put herself in mortal danger for her friends.
Although she can use magic, she is not at all proficient with it. It tends towards being weak, or difficult to control. She doesn't tend to use it, except in dire situations, but it is dangerous for her to fall back on given her lack of practice. The spells are only effective at fairly close range and get weaker the further away the target is. The spells also rely on her own energy, so she can't use it if she is already tired or using a lot of energy on healing an injury.
Bahamut, her Eidolon or summon, also has his own weaknesses. The first of which is him being on a sort of timer. He can only stay corporeal in battle-form for a certain amount of time, five minutes is the average, and this shortens depending how much damage he takes. When that time is up, he will be instantly dismissed. There is more leeway for how long he can be kept in this world if he is in Gestalt mode, because he is not in a combat situation where he can suffer damage.
Due to being Air elemental, he is especially weak to lightning magic, meaning that up against a mage, witch, wizard, bender or just somebody especially good with that particular spell, he is at an instant disadvantage. As well as that, he is able to be cut and injured just like anything else, and when his energy has been depleted enough by attacks from an enemy, he will be automatically dismissed. While extremely useful, he is not as hardy as one would imagine.
In his glider form, there are numerous downsides. While it is a useful method of travel, Fang will, as mentioned, have to be in a suitable condition to summon him in the first place. Also, the lack of... well, roof, that a plane of a similar size and speed would have is missing, making flying on him dangerous at high speeds. On top of that, it is difficult for her to battle on him in that form, given the potential for her to hit him accidentally instead of the enemy. That, and the aforementioned balance issue makes it rather awkward.
Given the Crystal activated qualities of both her Magical abilities and her Eidolon, if she doesn't have the Crystal on her, or if she not in a position to smash it to summon Bahamut, she cannot use them.
History: Three hundred years ago, the Vohemaro war of independence was in full swing and scuffles between those fighting for and against it were common. Fang's town, Oerba, was a badlands outpost that was still siding with Ivona. War between them and the would-be Vohemaro rebels had taken her parents from her, but the town orphanage was home. The atmosphere was friendly and positive despite the recent and unfortunate battles and the ever encroaching monsters on the border. It wasn't a safe place to live, but she learned to deal with the threat of monsters and banded together with her friends against them and people of rival towns who tried to convince them to switch side. It was then that she learned to fight.
Soon, something worse than war struck. A person, be him a man or god, nobody was entirely sure, presented himself to the people, asking for volunteers to squash the colonists who were fighting for independence. It sounded ideal. He called himself a fal'Cie, one of a small number of people with certain, magical abilities, but he acted like a deity. People came. They were branded with his mark and did what he asked, becoming l'Cie -- enhanced humans in his service.
Physically stronger than normal humans and able to tap into magic previously unavailable to them, they embraced the task of helping to half the rebellion. He and the other fal'Cie took advantage of that and set each of them a task, or Focus, and, if they completed it, they would be granted eternal life as a reward. As with all too-good-be-true deals, he turned out to be something of a conman. He failed to mention that their so-called eternal life would be spent in a crystal form, making the successful l'Cie a living statue. If they failed, they would become Cie'th, the crystalline walking dead, as punishment.
It became apparent that the other side had fal'Cie also. It was unclear whether they were genuinely opposed or simply taking advantage of the chaotic situation that the war brought about. Whichever it was, it wasn't long before the fal'Cie started arguing between themselves.
They began to set their l'Cie on each other.
Before too long, the demand for volunteers outweighed the supply considerably. People realised that they were being used and that they were steadily losing what hold they had on the colonial land, but they were taken by force by the fal'Cie and given no choice in becoming their servants by being branded against their will. Regardless of whether or not they wanted to fight that silly war, the l'Cie could do nothing to change their fates. It was turn Cie'th, die or succeed and become a Crystal. It didn't take long for the numbers of people in the towns to deplete due to that method of call-up.
Fang was one of the last to be branded. Marked and given the task of becoming a monster called 'Ragnarok', she was given the Focus of attacking and destroying an important rebel centre, and she set her course to do just that. She had lost too many friends to give up without a fight. She didn't care about what happened to those people so long as she didn't end up Cie'th. It was considered to be fate worse than death. Anybody that had heard the mournful, hateful cries of those cursed with a crystalline form would agree.
The target was a long way away, but she honed her skills with her spear in the Badlands as she travelled, meeting some interesting people as she travelled. Along the way, she started to doubt whether completing her Focus was worth it, whether the guilt of killing people like that was worth living with, regardless of what she would become if that happened. That was when Bahamut came for her, to either set her straight or kill her off. Considering she's not dead, it's quite clear that she beat him and reaffirmed her decision. He became her Eidolon.
It took time, but she finally reached her destination; the town of Cocoon. She felt no guilt. It was her or them -- if she managed to do the job, important members of the Vohemaro rebellion would be crushed and they would win. She was prepared to become the monster she needed to be to do the task. She steeled herself.
She doesn't remember what happened. She can't remember a thing from then on. She knows that she must have done what the fal'Cie asked of her, because when she awoke, it was three hundred years later. It wasn't as she had expected, though. Despite being freed from the fate of a l'Cie and having been rewarded with so-called eternal life, she realised that her efforts hadn't prevented Vohemar becoming a nation in its own right. Her efforts had been fruitless.
It took her a while to figure that out -- the world had changed considerably in the time that had past while she was in a Crystal sleep. Oerba was gone -- when Fang found it, and how she searched, all that remained was a long forgotten wreck of her home, half-buried in sand. That and the addition of a new country weren't the only things that had changed. Her brand, once black against her skin was now white and frozen. The magical 'timer' on it had been effectively disabled and she no longer had to worry about turning Cie'th. Perhaps that happened to all l'Cie who had completed their Focuses -- she'd never know.
Seeing little reason to stick around in the Badlands, Fang made it her business to learn as much about the world as it was as she could. She had to learn to get by. She was still, thanks to the crystal stasis, a young woman. Still, she held on to her l'Cie strength and survived the Badlands monsters. They were more numerous than they had once been, but no more difficult to dispatch.
She familiarised herself with the language, the culture, the newer festivals and the advances that civilisation had made in her long absence. She took on some jobs for money, mostly of the physical (not -that- kind of physical) kind and eventually bought herself a Difference Engine. It seemed like a must-have gadget and was, the salesman had said, extremely useful. When that was out of the way, she resolved to find herself a more permanent job and, she had heard, an Airship was the best place for this.
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