The Warriors Symphony
Summary: She hit the ground hard, rolling forward with the impact to lessen it on her limbs. A whizz of air rushed past above her and she glanced up in time to see the flash of white, yellow, and silver hurricane of a boomerang slice through the first opponent that had been reaching for her. Standing back up she flicked her wrist the gunblade transforming into the blade part of it's name.
Just another one-shot in my background LightningxHope collection. Figured this would be differrent and fun to try.
Lightning's eyes were entirely focused on the thick blanket of black ahead of her. It's not that she couldn't see at all but it was generally dark down in the Mah'habara Subterra. The lights were few and far inbetween. She didn't even understand how it was still working, the mines had been abandoned for awhile now considering the overabundance of monsters living within. They were slowly clearing them out though.
The Pulse branded I'Cie had split into pairs an hour earlier before diving into the tunnels nearby to help find a location where they could continue their journey forward to Oerba. Of course, Snow and Sazh were paired together considering the time they hung out. Vanille and Fang were practically sisters and also hung out a lot. Thing is that could also go in the way of Snow and Fang, then Sazh and Vanille. Those four were always hanging out. Which is how she got stuck with Hope who hung out with them as well. She understood the benefits of a buddy system but she still kept wondering why she was stuck here scouting ahead while Hope followed her looking like a wounded puppy.
If she looked over her shoulder she was sure to see his eyes that were currently burning holes into her back. She could just feel his gaze on her and it sent a flash of rage through her before she calmed her breathing for the millionth time it seemed. An image of the ocean blue eyes appeared in her mind, threatening to spill over onto a white covered sand beach. Lightning shook her head to chase the image away, to focus back on her surroundings fully. Finding and fighting monsters requires full concentration she reminded herself.
She really didn't care what his issue was. Though she knew what it was. He made that pretty clear after the 'waterfall incident'. Which is what she called it herself, in her own head. She would never tell the others what had happened there. Breaking a bone by slipping was pathetic for a soldier like her and she didn't need their sympathy. Or their gushing if they knew what Hope had done to heal it. More accurately Snow and Fang's gushing. Fucking weirdo pair.
The meer memory of his tongue running across her ankle made her skin crawl. She had been unable to move her leg away the moment she realised he wasn't healing it with his hands as per usual. No, instead they had been like steel traps around her left leg, hoisting it partially in the air closer to him and keeping it there while the bone mended. While his breath burned the water from her skin from being so close, wait, no, he had licked the water from her skin. But his mouth against her skin seemed to burn against it. No doubt part of the reason his lips had gone as far as halfway up her lower leg was to get rid of any bruises. She just wished she could have pulled away before he started the gradual biting, nipping was more like it. Pinching skin between his teeth to run the tip of his tongue across it. It hadn't hurt but still. He definetly didn't need to have been doing that.
Her heart began to pound again at a high frequency in her ears. The uncomfortable feeling prickling at her back had intensified drawing her from previous memories though the fast beats echoed it perfectly. She shifted her head slightly to the right.
Did she really want to look?
Lightning turned her head slowly to see Hope's shape crouched low to the ground aproximetaly three yards behind her. She almost screamed, heart leaping up into her throat. His eyes shined in the dark at her. Like a cat's. No, a predator. The sea blue-green was firmly latched to her watching her every move. They weren't sad anymore. Rather angry actually. She was dimly aware of her chest heaving and her mouth open gasping for breath to drive oxygen into her searing lungs.
His body shifted towards her and she whirled around quickly, walking again, this time at a faster pace. She slowed her breathing efficently and fast now that she wasn't looking at him. There was no way she was turning back around again to see him so close. The fact that she knew just how close he was now freaked her out enough as it was. Her hand that had broken out in a nervous sweat reached behind her to grab at the gunblade and pull it silently from the sheath. Her hand was dry again by the time her fingers wrapped around due to the air. She heard a sloshing sound ahead a second after having drawn the weapon. Ironically, the hairs on her arm began to lie flat again and the preassure on her back lifted a bit.
She figured he must have heard the noise as well. Well good, she didn't want him staring at her like that anymore.
The stone beneath her feet stopped abrutly and she paused a moment before moving her feet onto the iron grill suspended in the air from thick cables attached to the ceiling. She kept her steps light while quickening the pace. The sloshing was getting louder and she was sure there was some sort of underground flan waiting for them ahead now. Her fast walk developed into a sprint and she raced forward seeing glimmers of light from the walls ahead below the height of the grill. Her breath came quick and fast now yet silent as always. Preemptive strike she thought while grabbing onto the rail ahead of her rather than turning left to go down the stairs. She jumped clear over the rail and was now looking down at the ground rushing up at her from the height of a three story building. Red dirt tinged flan things moved slowly across the ground below, a single pulse machine walking in a clearing further down the path.
She hit the ground hard a moment later, rolling forward with the impact to lessen the effect on her limbs. One of the sludge things turned at the sound as her head raised slowly. She felt as if she were in slow motion but knew she wasn't or had any bad effects on her. It was simply a rush when this happened. Her hand struck out like a snake for the weapon she had thrown down at the ground while she fell. You didn't want to land holding it. Her fingers wrapping along the hilt only pausing for a second as a whizz of air rushed past above her and she glanced up in time to see the flash of white, yellow, and silver hurricane of a boomerang slice through the first opponent that had been reaching for her.
The flan-like creature was cut in half from the force of the throw into it's upper body and lower body halves. The thought that it could have hit her and done the same didn't even flash through her mind as she stood back up and flicked her wrist the gunblade forming into the blade part of it's name. She darted forward past the corpse that was now melting into ooze on the ground towards a middle sized rust flan. Did it really look like flan being that color? No. More like rust pudding. Oh yeah, tasty treat she thought sarcastically and grinned. Her movements were as fast as her thoughts. When the arms came flying out in a grab all you can get sort of way she jumped up flipping over the creature. Her right hand reached out pointing palm down as she passed overhead. Glowing a soft blue a cold breeze swept forward only to turn the gooey shell into ice hardly a second later. She landed on the opposite side, bringing the blade down behind her in a cleaving motion with her left arm. The sound of ice breaking and shattering was music to her ears.
Another sound started through the air again, humming almost, whistling, nevermind that though. It was getting louder and fast. Light lowered herself to the ground gathering herself before jumping up and over the low gliding boomerang as it grazed over the ground hitting a small slice off the bottom of the three remaining rust pudding infront of her. While flipping she had changed the weapon into right hand. Extending her left hand it glowed a hot orange before flames burst forth towards the two on her left keeping the monsters at bay as the ground infront of them burned. She rushed toward the third rust pudding slipping the blade to her side getting read for a horizontal swing.
The long stretchy arms swung out like whips before she was close enough and she raised the blade infront of her to block the blows. The arms wrapped around the blade and she slashed it back and forth to get rid of it the creature letting out a slosh sound as if in pain as the hands on the end of the arms fell off in ribbons. Lightning continued onto her path raising her blade to hack away at the arms infront of the rust pudding in some sort of effort of self defense. Strips of ooze fell to the floor before she slashed down cutting it in half rendering it dead.
She whirled around to face the other two that had started toward her when the flames had died back down not being able to continue to burn on just dirt. A thin piece of metal glowing soft gray flashed infront of the gooey monsters halting their progress for a moment. When they started moving again it had become slower. She dodged the arms coming at her easily just hopping over them to spin her blade once in hand cutting off the limbs.
A glow of dark green came from her left and two crystal like forms shot into each individual monster. The air magic Hope cast tore inside of them ripping them into shreds from the inside out so it looked like they had imploded. The ooze sunk toward the ground with a sort of burned smell.
Lightning didn't miss a beat turning once she knew the creatures were taken care of she ran fast toward where the cavern walls became closer creating a small path that opened more after twenty feet into another open space. The pulsework centurion was still walking around in the area as she had seen from when falling. Evidently it didn't have ears so hadn't heard the fight not to far away that had begun and ended in seconds. She tipped her right hand so the gun blade hissed along the wall as she approached sending sparks everywhere as well as getting flashes of light. Her left hand formed into a traditional signal for her and when she got to the end of the hall she flicked her blade forward off the wall to face the machine.
As it changed, pieces clicking and turning into new places to become a gun a gray crystal flashed by her to hit the centurion that had turned to her after the light show she had made. It blasted upon impact and the magic seeped into the metal. It's movements slowed and she raised her gunblade. Pulling the newly formed trigger a flash of light came from the end of the gun, a blast of sound assulting the still air, the recoil traveled up her arm until it gradually fell away before even reaching her shoulder.
The bullet raced forward to have a brown crystal slide up beside it and she could hear Hope's heavy breathing to her left from running to catch up. He had still been able to release the earth magic on time with her attack though. The impact of crystal and bullet against the machine made it stumble. The earth around it shook as if from an earthquake and Light ran forward with her left hand extended glowing orange-red once again.
Flames sprung forth from her fingers and palm, licking their way down into the main mass being directed at the machine. A breeze swept past her from behind extending the fire magic's reach and duration with the fuel of oxygen it gave. The fire swallowed the machine as it continued walking and even spun it's arm out when Lightning got close. She sprung over it gunblade twisting back into a blade as she was suspended in the air. The blade came flashing down across the metal a moment later leaving scratches across the surface. Her momentum continued through the air to drop to the ground behind it. The headspin it was still performing caught her squarely in the back and she fell flying forward into the ground.
Opening her mouth she spat out some dirt that had collected there in the puff of brown smoke that had gone up around her upon impact. Spreading her fingers out from her hands gloved hands pressed to the dirt she pushed herself up, glancing over her shoulder she saw the centurions metal like arm coming down. The whilring sound reached her ears at the same time, boomerang flying inbetween her and the machine a light green crystal slipped from the surface onto her, instead of exploding it seeped into her skin the places that had been hit and small minor cuts along her body glowed the same color briefly before disapearing.
With an afterglow still present she rolled out of the way and back to her feet switching the now gun into her left hand pulling the trigger five times in quick succession. The centurion shuddered with the last hit of a bullet, screws near the middle coming loose. A string of water splashed across the back and the top part raised up, showing a glowing energy core in it's middle now. Light moved in and started slashing until long gashes in the sphere cracked it open and the machine stopped moving.
She slid the gunblade back into the sheath and turned in a single motion to start down the path again. The feeling of being watched was back and her nose twitched slightly at the knowledge that Hope was staring at her again. Lightning took off in a run wondering when the hell she had become the deer in this game.
What did you think of the combat? The oh so lovely thoughts of Light? Hope's little change? Anything else you can think of.