Story: Moving on... Without You.
Chapter Synopsis: Serah tries to express herself by changing her appearance, but to those that know her, it seems like she's just running away.
Chapter 4: Orientation
[Day 2]
Orientation – (noun): an introduction, as to guide one in adjusting to new surroundings, employment or activity.
The next morning Serah cut her hair. Even with conditioning, it was in a sorry state. Dry, brittle, unmanageable, she laughed as she thought of what Noel had said about the special conditioner. In any case it hardly held a curl anymore. The change she'd wanted was now getting drastic; she hardly recognized herself in the mirror. Her blonde hair barely reached her shoulders.
She dressed herself in a new outfit she had bought; the shop keeper had called it "style and steel". The top reminded her of a military or naval uniform, black with two rows of silver buttons marching up the front. With it she wore jean shorts and a studded belt. She smiled at her reflection in her full length mirror. Now this was what she wanted. She felt different, confident and maybe a little aggressive.
When she met Noel at the Academy HQ, he gave her a once over but said nothing.
The early morning light found the two prospective monster tamers in the briefing room. There were five others who wanted to join up - four men and one woman - and they were all seated around the table. At the head of the table was the Director, Hope Esteim, who was now standing and commending them all for their interest in the mission. He explained the operation from the perspective of a researcher: some ruins had been found which might have connections to the ancient civilization of the Farseers. It was too dangerous to send in further personnel because the area was overrun by monsters.
"Beasts," corrected a young woman with short black hair. "Creatures, maybe. But definitely not monsters."
"My apologies miss…"
"Ardea Takeda. Senior field biologist of the Academy Classification Team."
"Miss Takeda, thank you for the clarification. The area is overrun by feral beasts, which is impeding the progress of excavation. Your job," Hope continued as he looked at each face in turn, "is to clear the area of dangerous creatures so that research can continue in a timely manner. You see, the..."
There was a knock at the open door. A tall, serious man stood in the door-frame, getting Hope's attention with a subtle upward tilt of his head. The Director nodded quickly, and gathered his papers from the table. As Hope prepared to leave, the tall man scanned the group around the table with his dark eyes. Serah felt a jolt of fear as his intense gaze landed on her. Though it lasted less than a second, the attention he paid to each of them was not casual.
Hope indicated the man at the foot of the table, forcing Serah to look away from the stranger in the doorway. "This is General Mathis of the military branch of the Academy. He will go over the details of the mission. Thank you once again for your interest; I'll leave the rest of the meeting in his hands." Hope gave a wave/salute to Noel and Serah before following the tall man out of the room.
General Mathis was an older man, nearing his sixties, with dark hair and eyebrows that was sprinkled with grey. He stood like a man that was well aware of his importance within the Academy hierarchy. Without his leadership and decision making skills, the military branch would flounder and fall into mediocrity. He attributed his success to his attention for detail and his incredibly high expectations of his subordinates. Some people called him "tough" but in less polite company he was known as the "Behemoth General" and not just because he was tall and broad-shouldered. What made General Mathis famous though, was his devotion to truth. It didn't matter if it made him look like a fool - if he made a mistake, if he was ever wrong, he'd admit it readily. That and his leadership skills made him a pleasure to work under, even if you were always held to the highest standards.
Unfortunately, Mathis wasn't at all interested in these small "event-based" volunteer teams. Looking over the group critically, he was dismayed by the rag-tag bunch that been assembled. To his left was a punk kid in a baseball hat, the female biologist and a man with longer hair than most women. To his right was a pretty young girl sitting beside a man who he guessed was her boyfriend, a muscle-bound giant of a man and, by his request, a promising young sergeant named George Evans. He nodded to the sergeant.
"The mission is simple. Protect the interests of the Academy. That's number one. Our interests include the physical ruins themselves as well as any and all personnel involved in their excavation. Secondly, you are to remove the beasts," he over-emphasized for the biologist's sake, "in the most humane way possible. The goal is to have zero casualties on either side. That means," he paused, giving them all serious eye contact, "that you don't get into a situation that you cannot handle. Have I made myself clear?"
"Yes, sir!" responded the Sergeant and the muscle-bound man.
"Yup!" "Yeah." and "Crystal." were also heard from the group. It wasn't quite the response he was looking for, but the General figured that it would do for now.
"Sergeant George Evans," the General pointed to the man with short light brown hair, "will be in charge of the operation. Once he deems the area is safe, the excavation process will continue. At this point, your role will change from monster tamer," a cough was heard from Ardea, at his slip of the tongue, "to security patrol. I understand that you may all have different techniques to deal with the monsters, but as a member of the Academy I must stress that the mission objective is not to kill any of them.
"At this point, I'll give the floor to Sergeant Evans to discuss tactics. In the morning you will be flown to the excavation site. If you choose to sign up, the tour will last approximately six months. Sergeant."
"Thank you, General Mathis," Evans said graciously. Everyone's attention turned to him, and General Mathis abruptly exited the room. He had enough confidence in Evans to leave this mission completely in his hands.
"I'd like to start with introductions." He looked down at the sign-up sheet. "Ok, alphabetically, Farron, Serah?"
Causally, Serah answered "Hi," and on a whim she added, "You can call me Lightning."
Noel made a snort of displeasure.
"Lightning, then, nice to meet you. Why don't you share with us why you want to join this mission?" And when she hesitated, he reassured her, "No need to be shy. No one else is military here, so don't feel like there's any pressure."
"Well," Serah said, "I just thought I should do my part. I don't really have a job right now, and this is something that I'm good at."
Sergeant Evans nodded. "And what makes you qualified to be a beast tamer?"
"My friend Noel and I have tamed lots of creatures in the past few months," she said gathering a handful of monster crystals from her satchel and displaying them on the table. The others leaned forward in interest.
"Hmm, excellent. You came highly recommended from the Director himself," Evans noted, of which the others seemed impressed. "OK, next we have Ash Kenwood."
"Yo," waved the kid in the baseball hat.
"Ash, why do you want to join this team?"
He smiled, "I believe that every creature has a unique personality. Just like people. I want to protect them. And catch 'em all, of course."
And so it went, each person having their own reasons for joining the group. The large man, Blaze Pitman, turned out to be ex-military, and this was the one mission that he could join without having to re-enlist. Then there was Ardea, who wanted to compile a complete bestiary for the Academy, and Flint Westerbrook who seemed a little bit like a hippie. Apparently he'd lived in the wilderness and understood the value of conservation.
"From your diverse backgrounds we'll have to establish a battle plan…"
It was late afternoon when the meeting finally adjourned. Walking out of the room, Serah felt overwhelmed by the amount of information she was expected to remember. About halfway through the meeting, when asked what kind of weapon she used, she'd frozen up. Mog… Noel had covered for her, saying she was looking for a new weapon, and asked if the Academy had any bows or swords that she could use. Sergeant Evans agreed to escort them to the arsenal after the meeting, and offered them access to the training facility for the rest of the day.
Serah and Noel followed the sergeant through a maze of corridors and buildings until they came upon the room in which the weapons were kept. The Academy had quite a collection. Guns of all sorts hung on the walls and from the ceiling while swords stood in racks along the periphery of the room. Glass display cases featured the Omega weapons. Serah was immediately drawn to an Omega gunblade. Her eyes lit up as she imagined herself wielding the thing.
Evans chuckled. "A little advanced for your first time, don't you think?" He led her over to the collection of gunblades. "These have been standard issue for exceptional soldiers since the days of the Guardian Corps," he said indicating the Blazefire Sabre.
A pang of nostalgia tore through Serah as she recognized Lightning's weapon. Was this what she wanted: a tribute to her sister? Further down the aisle of gunblades, a barrel made of shiny black and gold metal caught her eye. Serah tentatively lifted the Axis Blade off the rack and tested it for its weight.
"Ah yes, the Axis: built for speed and ease of movement in the field. Good choice." Evans then scratched his head, "But I thought you said you were interested in bow and arrow or a sword?"
"I've been using a bow and arrow for a while now…" or at least, the old me had, she thought. "But I really would like to try this out, if that's ok?"
"By all means," replied the sergeant. "There's a shooting range nearby. I can give you a little tutorial on how it works."
Evans showed her how the blade folded out with a downwards flick of his wrist. Another flick, and it was back to gun form. "This weapon combines both the melee style combat you'd get with a sword and the long range a gun can provide. Only one style can be used at a time. The most skilled fighters can alternate between the forms with a flick of their wrist."
Serah tried to transform the gun into a sword, to no avail.
"Aha, see it has a safety feature," he said indicating a small knob on the hilt. "This switch allows you to transform the weapon. Without it, the Axis is locked in gun form. But if you flip it," he showed her, "now you can change form."
Serah tried flicking her wrist now, and to her surprise, it easily transformed.
"The transformation doesn't require a lot of force. That is, as long as you oil it regularly. Did you hear the click? That means the Axis is now locked in sword mode. To transform between blade and gun, you must flip the switch to unlock it.
"It's common to see a gunblade user flourish their blade in battle, rotating their wrist. This is because older models had a faulty safety switch, so they got used to continually flicking their wrists to ensure the blade was out and steady. It is not necessary to do so with this newer model, but some soldiers do it anyway, because the click can be hard to hear during a battle."
Next he showed her how to load the gun. Then he set her up at the firing range. At first, Serah found it hard to hold the gunblade steady in one hand.
Evans casually reached his arms around her, placing her free hand on the bottom of the barrel. Noel looked away. Serah blushed. "It's best to fire two-handed, like this, until you build up strength in your firing arm."
It became obvious that she'd never used a gun before, but her aim with a bow was always dead on. After a few rounds, Serah was hitting the target every time. Evans was impressed. Noel was bored. The men headed to the cafeteria for supper, Noel promised to bring her back something, and she continued to practice.
After supper, the sergeant suggested she try sparring to get a better handle on the gunblade. They headed over to the coliseum where training exercises could be viewed by the general public. It usually wasn't busy unless a well-known soldier was training or if an exhibition match was scheduled. Sergeant Evans left them with a salute, "See you two tomorrow." And to Noel he added, smirking, "Don't be too rough with her, now."
Ignoring him, Noel entered the ring and faced Serah with both his blades out. "Ready?"
To be sure, Serah gave the gunblade two more test-flicks, convincing herself she was comfortable with the weapon. They had loaded the gun with safety rounds, so that she could try shooting without injuring Noel severely. Nodding in his direction, she positioned herself with her arms above her head and the blade pointing downwards. She tried to emulate how she'd seen Lightning move.
"Ready!" she shouted to her companion.
It had been awhile since they'd sparred together, her and Noel. When they'd met, she'd never been in a battle before, so the training had been gradual. Noel had obviously been holding back, so as not to destroy her confidence, but he would always give her a challenge. He never let her win. He explained that, in his experience, an unmerited victory would only give a sense of false confidence. Throughout their journey, the battles got tougher, until one day in Oerba 400 AF she actually beat him. With her sword at Noel's throat, and sweat dripping down her spine, she'd smiled and he laughed. Since that day, they hadn't fought each other again. Too much happened all at once and they hadn't had any free time until after Caius was defeated. After Mog had disappeared, she didn't have the heart to fight anymore.
So when Noel came at her at full speed, Serah was surprised. She had expected them to return to square one. A jolt of adrenaline helped her to deflect his initial attack with her blade. Muscle memory warned her that his usual opening was followed by an attack with his second, larger blade. And just as he spun around, Serah jumped back and the massive sword barely missed her cheek. Next he'd try a stabbing motion unless she had her guard up. Automatically, she flipped the switch on the Axis Blade and fired in his face as he turned to face her again. Noel's eyes widened as he was knocked off balance. Not quite an acrobat as her sister, Serah merely jumped backwards rather than doing a backflip, but the effect was the same and she was out of reach for now.
Temporarily out of danger, Serah wondered why Noel wasn't holding anything back.
"Noel, please, this weapon is still new to me!"
Noel wiped the blood from his face; the safety round fired at point blank range had definitely broken his nose. "What isn't new about you these days?" he said as he cast Cure on himself.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Noel scoffed. "Lightning? Really?" Noel sheathed his swords behind him. "That isn't who you are!"
Unprepared for this type of fight, Serah lowered her weapon, but had nothing to say.
The hunter stalked towards her, speaking in a low voice, like he was trying not to yell. "You think you've changed so much, but you're still the same person on the inside. You care about others to the point that you'd risk yourself. You are always hopeful and optimistic and you bring that out in others." Standing in front of her now, Noel touched her blonde hair gently. Anger dissipated, his voice now held an edge of sadness to it, "Generous, kind and cheerful. That's who you are. You're still Serah, despite everything that has happened."
"It's hard, ok? I'm still trying to figure this out," Serah sighed.
Serious blue eyes locked on her own. "I just don't understand why you think you need to change at all. You are an incredible person. Perfect, just the way you are."
And then it hit her. Noel thought she was pulling away, but he couldn't be farther from the truth. All this time, she'd just been trying to find herself, and where she fit in this new future.
Orientation – (noun): the ability to locate oneself in one's environment with reference to time, place and people
"Noel... I'm sorry."
