Cactuar (fal'Cie)

The fal'Cie Cactuar is a minor character in Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments Before and Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments After, and is mentioned in a datalog in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Cactuar is a Gran Pulse fal'Cie with a unknown purpose, and is instrumental in the journey of Snow Villiers.

Datalog

 * The l'Cie
 * The l'Cie are humans who have been cursed by the fal'Cie. They are given great powers and magic, but they are forced to obey the gods' will to achieve their Focus, or mission. If they fail, the l'Cie turn into mindless monsters called Cie'th.

":Lightning, Hope, and their other friends were once branded as l'Cie, but they managed to bring about unprecedented miracle and rid themselves of the curse. Snow is now the last l'Cie remaining in the world.


 * The cactuar statue that you can see in one of the plazas in Yusnaan is said to be a homage to the fal'Cie Cactuar who made Snow a l'Cie once more. It seems that Snow and Cactuar had a strange bond between them, far beyond that of any normal fal'Cie and its thralls.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Fragments Before
Snow first encounters Cactuar during his journey to find Lightning for his fiancee Serah. Cactuar had lost its memories and powers. Thinking that it was a genuine Cactuar separated from its herd, Snow tries to return it, but the nearby herd stampedes. Cactuar attacks Snow, but stops when Snow tells it to. The two then journey together, with Snow vowing to return Cactuar to its herd. As they journey and get into multiple difficulties. This appears to create a bond between them, as Cactuar helps Snow out during these events. When they find a settlement of exiled PSICOM troops under attack from Behemoths, Cactuar temporarily regains its powers and destroys the monsters. It then tries to brand Snow as a l'Cie, but he resists and it loses its powers again. The two then continue their journey.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Fragments After
Snow manages to smuggle Cactuar onto a Cocoon transport, but the ship is attacked and the two draw the monsters away. They are then caught in an incomplete time gate and sent to the Coliseum, where Cactuar regains its memories. Again trying to brand Snow, it relents when Snow says it would not make Serah happy. The two then get caught in a temporal distortion and witness many events, including Serah's death. Spurred on by this, Snow requests to be made a l'Cie. Cactuar agrees, giving him the Focus to find and fight with Serah during the final battle. They then arrive at the Sunleth Waterscape in the year 300 AF, where they are confroted by Royal Ripeness, and Cactuar is driven away. Cactuar is presumed to have either gone dormant or been destroyed when chaos was released into the mortal world from Valhalla.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
According to a datalog in Lightning Returns, the Cactuar statue that stands in Yusnaan was built as a homage to Cactuar, showing that Snow had not forgotten the fal'Cie and that a bond existed between them, at least on Snow's side.