Lightning was falling.
She didn't recognize the city below her, but she knew one thing for sure: She wasn't in Valhalla anymore. She tried hard not to panic, but the roaring wind and the rapidly approaching ground made it difficult to think coherent thoughts. She tried to find her old grav-con unit, but quickly discovered that she was still wearing the black and feathery armor Etro had provided her with in Valhalla. Crap. Damn that goddess and her inconvenient clothing choices, she thought for the millionth time, missing her Guardian Corps uniform and its gadgets more than ever. The ground was rushing towards her, and she was running out of time.
"Odin, I need you!" she yelled, trying to summon her eidolon, but her loyal ally was nowhere to be found. "Odin!" Suddenly it dawned on her that since she wasn't a l'Cie anymore, that giant flying horse she'd grown to love wasn't hers to summon anymore. A pang of sorrow pierced her heart, but she quickly pushed away the pain. She could mourn him later, when she wasn't falling to her death. Him, and everyone else. As an ordinary human being she was weak, and more importantly, vulnerable. She needed a plan, and she needed it fast.
The pilot was having a really bad day. He was having a killer headache, and his co-pilot had been babbling constantly for several hours. He'd stopped listening about five minutes into the conversation, but his co-pilot's high pitched voice still made his head pound. Only five more minutes, he thought to himself. Only five more minutes, then we'll finally arrive in Academia. He suddenly realized that his co-pilot had been silent for almost a full minute. He cast a quick glance at her. She was staring out the windshield, mouth ajar.
"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked her. She raised a hand and pointed at something high up in the sky. That "something" was a blur of pink, black and white, and it was descending at a very alarming velocity.
"That is one weird-ass looking bird."
Lightning managed to at least land on her feet when she collided with the airplane. It was one of those tiny planes with just a cockpit and a handful of passengers, and her impact made it wobble through the air. She desperately tried to hold on to something, anything, but when the plane gained its original altitude she found herself once again falling. The plane-bouncing had slowed her down a bit, but she was still falling way too fast.
That's when she hit the second airplane. And the third. What on Pulse is this place and why are there so many airplanes? she thought, while bouncing off her fourth flying vehicle. This time the vehicle in question was a hoverbike, and she almost knocked the poor driver out of his saddle. The journey came to an abrupt end when she fell through the glass roof of a ridiculously tall building. She hit the floor in a very loud and very painful crash-landing. For a moment she just lay there, unable to breath. The fall, or perhaps the landing, had broken several of her ribs. Her left shoulder was dislocated, her right knee was bent in a really strange angle and she was bleeding from more places than she could count… but she was alive. The relief almost made her smile, but moving her lips would hurt too much, so she focused on the breathing problem instead. She managed to take a shallow breath. Her lungs were making a wheezing sound that usually would have worried her quite a bit, but she hurt too much to care. She took another breath. I'm alive. I'm not in Valhalla anymore. I'm alive.
People had started to flock around her. They were all wearing the same uniforms; white shirts with yellow sleeves and blue ties.
"Hey, are you alright?" A girl with short blonde hair and friendly eyes reached out a hand as if to help her up. Yeah, like that's going to happen anytime soon, Lightning thought and continued to focus on getting air in and out of her lungs. Black spots were starting to cloud her vision, and she felt her consciousness slowly slip away.
"At least tell us your name," the girl demanded. Why won't she just leave me alone?
"… Lightning." Even her vocal cords hurt. "Lightning Farron." Silence spread through the room. Beautiful, comfortable silence. The world grew darker.
"Someone please call the Director. Now!" she heard someone yell. Then everything went black.