I woke up with pain flaring like fire on my neck. I felt cold, hard ground below me, and my legs were shaking with weakness. I was unable to move, even to open my eyes. I could only breathe. I felt the presence of another above me, felt hot breath on the back of my neck. The breath seemed to give me the strength to stand. But as soon as I started to move, the presence was gone, though the strength remained. I struggled to my four feet, flicking my tail with jerky movements. The fire on my neck seemed to burn with greater intensity. I managed to open my eyes, to look around, and growled at the sight.

            I was in a cage. The cold ground below me was metal. Outside the cage, there spanned a great room, and filling the room was what looked like a machine, where a dragonic creature—a Gondra—seemed to wait. It was a rather robotic Gondra, half of its body gone and replaced with machines to match what was behind it, to match what it was connected to. It’s eyes were closed, but I knew it had been what had given me strength.

            But, it was not the Gondra or the machines that caught my interest the most. It was the magenta Creatu laying a little to my right. She was a Roditore, like me, and was pretty ordinary, aside from the odd mark on her left arm, and a necklace around her neck. She seemed to be dead, but she was not. She was still breathing. I wondered if she was as I had been. If I had seemed dead. But my thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

“I see you have found Serah. She is to be your partner."

The voice was steely, like rust grinding over rust, and filled with menace and hate. I looked up to see that the Gondra was looking at me. It was unhooked from the machines around it, but the machine half of its body still stared at me, unblinking. I couldn’t believe what was happening. First, I woke up in a strange room, in a cage. But then, I was told I was to be a partner to a Creatu I had never met, or even seen, before.

“No, no, no. You must have the wrong Roditore. I don’t even know the poor Creatu.”

His eyes seemed to glow with joy. But it wasn’t a happy joy. It was an evil joy. The joy in torturing.

“Oh, I have the right Roditore. After all, you are my servant. You are branded.”

As soon as he had said that, my neck burned with the anger of a wildfire. The Gondra grinned with malice. He started forward as he spoke.

“Yes. You are the perfect Roditore. You are to protect Serah, even at the cost of your life. She knows what she is to do. She is given a gift to help her. As are you, though you won’t know what for a while. But you are to accompany her, and never to let her get killed. For the moment she dies, you will as well.”

I felt the strength slowly leaving my body. I glared at the Gondra for a moment before spitting at him, missing by a millimeter.

“Oh really, now? She’s unconscious. How could she know what to do? And why should I give up my life for the life of some Creatu I don’t know?”

His eyes flared with the fire of fury, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground, pain searing down my side, my blood staining the metal below me. The fire in my neck was ignored.

“Because, I am your master, and I command you to do so. Accept the quest, and be healed, or die.”

Still glaring, my breath now coming in ragged gasps, I nodded, and almost instantly, my side seemed to knit together, though pain still immobilized me. His furious eyes were unwavering.

“Because of your defiance, you shall forever bear a scar. It will never heal, and always pain you when you least expect it.”

He turned away, leaving me gasping on the floor of the cage. I glanced over to see Serah stirring. Obviously, the beast noticed it, too, for he called out for another, the name somewhat familiar to me.

“L’Cie! Take them to their starting point! They are not to wake here.”

Almost instantly, as if by a spell, I was oddly sleepy. I fought it, of course, but it was overpowering, and my eyes soon closed. Before I went unconscious, though, I heard a soft voice from not far off.

“Yes, Master Fal’Cie.”