A/N: I'm back and on another fanfic! Yay! So let's get started with explanations of this newborn fic:

This is based around when Lightning and Serah lost their last and only parent. In my mind, Lightning has been working hard for years now (namely in high school), but was just able to make it in to the Guardian Corps training academy roughly half a year ago.

To recap: her age in Episode Zero is: [20], the game is: [21], her father died earlier on, her mother died after when she was: [15].

I'm making her at least [17] here because she graduated high school before she went to join the Guardian Corps Bodhum Security Regiment.

As always I ask that you R&R, thank ya kindly

Obligatory Disclaimer: Do you really think I'd be writing fanfics of this story if I owned it? Nahda.

Sleep Schematics 101

Synopsis

Sharp and resilient, the clang of metal hitting metal echoed off seemingly invisible walls. Two figures circling upon dirt littered grounds looked as though they were dancing in an archaic fashion; their movements calculated and precise. With every lift of a foot, dust from the dirt kicked up as they moved, prowling and circling, tolerant and waiting; anticipating the right moment where the other might misstep or wane.

Hoping that they would.

Light pink hair flashed in the artificial sunlight, blue eyes narrowed predatorily; the once elegant pools of crystal, now razor-sharp shards of glass. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the on-going exertion of the battle; her arms and legs cramping with strain. Two days; this training, this specific battle had been carrying on for. Two days, one night of no sleep. Two days, one night with no food or water.

Two days.

Crystal eyes spiked, widening for a brief moment as they watched their opponent's leg slip and falter. It was barely noticeable, but Lightning took the opening and charged full-on at her opponent; screaming finality in her dust covered wake. She swiped her saber upward, slicing her opponent straight up the middle, the man crying out and falling immediately to the ground; succumbing to the superficial wound and his over-laden exhaustion.

The scenery, deserted, dry brown dirt covering the dusty ground with ominous lurking hills in the far distance, flashed briefly of black and white lines like an old television set dying out. Then it disappeared altogether, leaving a white, pristine training hall in its standing.

Lightning swiped at the sweat on her brow. She needed to swipe at something; at anything, really. Her eyes were aching to close, but she had no intention of revealing her true exhaustion in front of any of her superiors; no much less her peers.

The saber in her hands faded, as did the saber that was flung to the ground. Her opponent still lay, puffing on the floor, sprawled and clutching his abdominal.

Perhaps the only draw-back to the high-efficiency simulator (HES) was that when someone was wounded in the simulation, they felt it as though it were reality. Mostly the pain was bearable; various small cuts in various small places left no one physically or mentally scarred. Though in some cases, rare cases, those wounds had made many come mentally undone. They had personnel on stand-by in case anyone lapsed in to a self-induced coma or panic.

And judging by the way her former opponent, Sohl, was writhing on the ground; the medical personnel were needed.

The young girl stepped back, watching emotionally detached as they tried to bring the man back to some sense of reality. He only screamed when they touched him, kicked when they held him and slowly, but surely, fell still as they drugged him.

Lightning had never actually been on the receiving end of an onslaught, but she imagined, from the many she gave, it was excruciatingly painful; sometimes rightfully so.

To her annoyance, many of her peers were male counter-parts. And over 90% of those males were complete and total idiots. Every here and there, there was a female, but they weren't found in the Guardian Corps division often. No, the females often strove for positions in PSICOM; which required a lot more brain and a lot less brawn. Surprise that. The only reason Lightning hadn't opted for PSICOM instead, herself, was because they were a sketchy, seedy division. Many complaints escaped from both civilians and Guardian Corps units. But besides that was the more important factor that she could work where she lived on the Bodhum Security Regiment; the plus being that her baby sister, Serah, was never too far away.

Her nose scrunched to the smell of the broken man as they lifted him from off the floor, evacuating him to a much more appropriate place. It wasn't the sweaty smell that bothered her. After a year of training and generally just being around hygiene-inadequate men, her nose grew accustomed to the pungent odor. No this odor was different. After seeing what Sohl considered his death, he must've thought and felt he died. The man had aptly urinated himself.

"Damn, Farron." One man laughed, placing his hand on Lightning's shoulder "Nothin' like overkill, don't you think?"

She smacked the offending contact away, her face never changing as she spoke. "The object is to debilitate your opponent. And you'd do well to know: there is no such thing as overkill."

"Yeah, but we've been told to take it easy on each other. You know there's a glitch in the system, right?"

Lightning scoffed, taking the towel sitting off to the side graciously as she walked towards the showers. "Simulation troubles aren't my area of expertise. If you babies have a problem with the glitch: go train in the sandbox with your wooden toys."

The gathered men stayed silent, watching until the beautiful and equally terrifying enigma disappeared from sight; from sound.

"That's one damn cold girl."