Final Fantasy XIII Gaiden Shōsetsu: Yumemiru Mayu, Akatsuki ni Otsu

Final Fantasy XIII Side Story: A Dreaming Cocoon Falls into the Dawn is a multi-chaptered novella in the Final Fantasy XIII Ultimania Omega. It features stories of the experiences of a number of individuals in Cocoon that take place concurrently with the Purge and the subsequent journey of the Pulse l'Cie.

Characters

 * Aoede - an aspiring journalist with some experience as a regional video news reporter who wants the chance to make a compelling report of her own and boost her career.
 * René - a somewhat arrogant 17-year-old girl prodigy attending the university in Eden who is forced to go on the run after unwittingly attracting the ire of the fal'Cie.
 * Cielo - a young air freight pilot who admires Sazh Katzroy.
 * NORA - a neighborhood watch group from Bodhum turned vigilantes against the Sanctum.
 * Gadot
 * Lebreau
 * Yuj
 * Maqui

The Price for Pursuing the Truth
Aoede feels the news in Cocoon is never questioned, so she is waiting for the chance to capture footage for a report of her own that would invite criticism and allow people to make their own judgments. Her chance comes when the Sanctum announces the discovery of a Pulse fal'Cie within a vestige located in Bodhum, and initiates the Purge to remove anyone who may have been "tainted."

Contrary to the rest of Cocoon, Aoede questions everything about the Purge, and doesn't believe it to be a forced migration to Pulse as the Sanctum proclaims. Making her way to the outer perimeter of the blockades placed around Bodhum, Aoede gathers bits of information that support her skepticism, such as members of the Sanctum, military, and their families being exempt from the Purge, and that tens of thousands of traceable restraint garments were made for the Purgees to wear, as though the Purge clothing was made in advance before the Sanctum's announcement. Aoede theorizes that the Purge was an elaborate ploy by the Sanctum to instill more fear of Pulse into the populace and maintain control over Cocoon. Believing that no one would be Purged, she fits herself with hidden cameras, sneaks into Bodhum, and boards a Purge train, hoping to make a documentary that would boost her reputation as a reporter.

Onboard the Purge train, Aoede secretly records the anger, fear, and despair of the Purgees. When the train comes to a halt at the Hanging Edge, Aoede discovers her hunch about the Purge was right, but also finds out the gruesome truth as chaos unfolds around her; an explosion sounds in the distance, the Purgees revolt against the PSICOM soldiers, taking their weapons and escaping. After removing her Purge clothing, Aoede leaves the train car and steps onto a skybridge, seeing the Hanging Edge turned into a war zone. She witnesses Sanctum attack ships directing their gunfire at the rebelling Purgees and realizes the Sanctum never intended to exile them from Cocoon, and that the Purge was a way to cover up their plot to take the supposedly tainted civilians to the restricted area and enact a concealed genocide.

Realizing her foolishness for plunging herself into the situation, Aoede can only stand in a daze and watch the carnage. An attack vessel locks on to her but she is moved out of the way before the pilot fires and she escapes with her saviors, the members of NORA. Guided by NORA, Aoede and other surviving Purgees escape the battlefield and take refuge in a crevice in the ground.

Messengers of the Purge
Ever since losing her parents at a young age and growing up in a Sanctum-run orphanage, René has been considered a genius by all who know her, skipping several grades and finishing high school in just over a year. However, she has always seen herself as superior to others as no one has been able to match her intelligence, which is why she sought to escape the orphanage in her hometown of Bodhum. René aspires to become a member of the Sanctum and rise to a position that would allow her to participate in government operations and apply her knowledge of AMP technology.

As she enters the library to view documents on AMP models, the announcement for the Purge of Bodhum has been made. Worrying about a junior school classmate she knew from the orphanage, René tries to distract herself by working. She begins developing theories and unconsciously types them in a open text file on a terminal, theories stating that the fal'Cie don't care for human lives and allowed the population grow to large numbers in order to fulfill a goal that required the loss of lives on a grand scale, and in the near future, humanity would be betrayed by their fal'cie protectors. When she comes to her sense and stops typing, a message flashes on the console, directing her to go to the upper levels. She goes down the hallway and calls for the elevator when she realizes she forgot her ID card on the console panel.

When René returns to the reading room to get her ID card, she notices she is the only one there. A metallic statue suddenly appears before her and proclaims its purpose to eliminate her, causing René to realize that since Cocoon's network terminals were under fal'Cie control, they had read her theories and sent a report to a high-ranking fal'Cie that someone there possessed dangerous thoughts. René's theories are too close to the truth, so the steel statue fal'Cie was sent to exterminate everyone believed to have read them to keep the truth from getting out. The fal'Cie opens its chest cavity, revealing the gears it used to kill the people in the room, and advances towards René. The elevator arrives, providing René with a distraction. She shoves a stool into the fal'Cie's gears to stall it and bolts out the entrance doors. Evening is about to turn to dusk and René calls out for help to the few pedestrians still roaming the streets. A soldier belonging to the Homeguard tells them to go about their business so he can talk with René. She is about to tell the soldier everything when she hears a familiar sound of scratching gears coming from the soldier, another exterminator fal'Cie in disguise. The revelation causes René to tremble with fear and leaves her too shocked to call out to anyone to her aid again as the fal'Cie reaches towards her.

Unbeknownst to René, at the same time, the Pulse fal'Cie Anima had been defeated by people within the Vestige in the Hanging Edge. The great energy wave released swept throughout Cocoon. All of the fal'Cie felt its effects and ceased to function, including the exterminator fal'Cie. René wastes no time and escapes through the streets of Eden into the night. Unable to return home and cut off from everything, René resolves to survive and find somewhere to hide under the fal'Cie's radar.

Mixed Skies
Cielo has been grounded by an air-traffic controller right before takeoff, so he decides to rest up in his airship's cockpit. Ever since Sazh had gone on leave over a week ago, Cielo has been working overtime to pick up the slack. The flights that Cielo piloted are being regulated and experiencing delays ever since the Purge took place the other day. Worried that Sazh might have been swept up in the Purge, Cielo dismissed the notion as Sazh previously mentioned going to Euride Gorge with his son Dajh, and believed that he would have heard whether something happened to Sazh due to the news of an accident at Euride.

Cielo is awakened from his daydream by a call from the control tower giving him permission to take off. Now airborne, Cielo flies towards the destination of the packages, the city of Eden. Then he spots a speeding military aircraft that appeared to leave from the remote area around Lake Bresha, and receives an order to make an emergency stop which Cielo obeys. Then he sees unmanned PSICOM attack ships in pursuit of the unknown airship. Cielo figures that the airship is being piloted by a person as he watches it outmaneuver the PSICOM ships by guiding them into the molten plasma of the fal'Cie Phoenix. He watches the spectacle from the edge of his seat, admiring the skills of the mystery pilot and secretly cheering for those being chased by PSICOM. Unfortunately, their airship is struck by approaching reinforcements and begins falling towards the Vile Peaks, prompting Cielo to pray for the safety of those on board.

Undercover Stray Cats
After breaking through PSICOM's defenses, Aoede, NORA, and a portion of the surviving Purgees escape the Hanging Edge and hide inside an ancient Pulsian building that was inserted between the layers of Cocoon's outer shell during its construction, a large vestige that "shouldn't" exist and the perfect place for the Purge survivors to lay low and wait out the army's search efforts. Gadot led a combat team to ensure everyone's safety and massive amounts of food and supplies were sent through Lenora's Garage. Aoede continues to record everything that is happening as the footage could persuade the people of Cocoon to turn against the Sanctum and the fal'Cie. She believed that NORA's way of life, refusing the charity of the fal’Cie and looking after themselves, would be the key to help guide the people into a new era as they have been able to protect people and provide for them by using their own smarts and resources. Suspicions of a Sanctum conspiracy grow stronger as everyone thinks about how the Pulse Vestige went uninvestigated for centuries and that a dormant fal'Cie residing within seemed like a coincidence, concluding that the Sanctum always knew of its existence and waited for the right moment to fake its discovery and set the Purge into motion.

By hacking the Sanctum’s information channels through his own network, Maqui successfully taps into a live feed and projects a hologram of what Aoede recognizes as a broadcast from Palumpolum being captured by a military surveillance camera. The footage depicts a plaza turned into a war zone as a pillar of ice being conjured by magic and expanding into many throughout the area, the sounds of gunfire from soldiers, and a Pulse l'Cie. Upon closer inspection, NORA recognized the l'Cie as their leader Snow Villiers. Being a friend by association, Aoede considers the feelings of NORA seeing their leader as a l'Cie and thinks to stop recording. Just as she is about to stop filming, Yuj's unexpected response causes Aoede's finger to slip from the stop button on her glasses. Having been worried about Snow since the Pulse Vestige plummeted into Lake Bresha, the news of his survival brings an overwhelming feeling of relief to NORA. Aoede sees all that matters to them is that Snow is alive, not that he was made a l'Cie.

The footage from Palumpolum cuts off and NORA begins planning their next step as Snow's appearance was the sign they needed. From the footage, Aoede knows that Snow is going to take the fight directly to the Sanctum and NORA most likely wants to build a resistance movement to help him. As the Sanctum's troops are likely concentrated around Palumpolum, leaving holes in the security around the Hanging Edge, NORA and the refugees would be able to escape. Aoede decides to accompany NORA and capture more footage of their quest. After leaving some instructions with the remaining NORA members, they leave their shelter and set out for Eden.

The Trapped Tabernacle
Around the time the remaining Pulse l’Cie begin storming their way into the Sanctum Skyfleet airship, the Palamecia, to rescue Sazh and Vanille, René has continued evading the fal'Cie for several days by escaping through the network of maintenance tunnels located beneath Eden. The maze of underground passages have no surveillance cameras, therefore leaving the fal'Cie unable to pinpoint her location.

Hiding from her fal'Cie pursuers, René discovers she has the gift for playing cat and mouse, and had not realized her own potential until now was because, as a child at the orphanage, she would rather spend her time broadening her mind instead of partaking in such childish games. The fal'Cie tasked with killing René has been after her ever since the events at the library. Now she is able to run from them while taking the time to observe its actions and gain an understanding of its abilities. From watching how the fal'Cie destroyed the stool she shoved in its gears before going after her, René knows she will be able to escape while keeping a fair amount of distance from it.

External link

 * English translation (fanmade)