(2,000 words, yes exactly that amount) Well I'm done my assignments so I can do this now, hoorah. I named the evil voice in my head after Arianna, I was very bored.

Disclaimer: Oh yes I own this don't I? (voice dripping with sarcasm)


Deceiving Love

Chapter 4: Patrol


Lightning was in a bad mood, an extremely bad one. She'd been in it all day. Firstly she'd been woken up in an insanely early hour of the morning by the idiot and his group returning home later than usual. And then after that she hadn't managed to get to sleep at all. So she had gotten up for work tired as hell, and that had just been the start.

The first half of her day was spent doing the paper work that came with her rank. She hated that part, being stuck in a stuffy room all day was not her style. She much prefered the practical part, which for her skills she was allowed to do more than others of the same rank as her.

She rubbed the sore hand of hers, the aching pain had started pretty early on and she had no choice but to continue. So it'd gotten much worse as she had filled it all out. 'Jeez, and apparently some people actually like doing that kind of thing.'

At current she was stuck on patrol, it was damn boring as nothing at all was happening. At least she wasn't stuck in the stuffy room anymore. She was on patrol until early in the morning. She was unually tired at the moment thanks to the unwanted wake up at a seriously inapropiate time, but she didn't have to go to work tommorow. It was one of her few days off, and she was intent on spending that day sleeping; it wasn't like she had anything to do, her time was filled with work.

She walked down a quiet path, it was dark and lightless but her eyes were well adjusted to it. The town had been well developed considering it had only been two years since the fall. The buildings at the edges of town were made from stronger meterial and were bigger because they had the best chance of being attacked by a fiend. Not many lived in those houses, only brave people dared it. The ones in the middle were made from weaker materials because they didn't have enough of the stronger ones for the whole place. But they were good enough to live in and survive, and that was the only need. There was no need for extravagance like on Cocoon, they didn't have enough of anything for it and all they needed was the bare necessities.

Lightning spotted the house Serah had mentioned that had apparently been attacked by an Ugallu, it was quite clearly missing a roof, that was the first thing she noticed. It wasn't right near the edge of New Bodhum, but it wasn't near the middle either. That was lucky because the middle was the most heavily populated. Other than the middle a large number of people lived on the beache's edge, like her and NORA did.

She kept her eye out for any movement, at the moment there was nothing, tonight had been quiet for this time of night. It was common for beasts to sneak in and try to attack something or someone. People were more unsuspecting, though a few became more weary at such times; but that number was only a small amount of the population. People here were too used to living on Cocoon, two years in this place were not enough to curer that yet. Hopefully someday but not now. Back in Bodhum people would be able to rest in their beds without a worry, but that had changed drastically when they were forced to live on Pulse.

So far all she had done tonight was take down a small goblin who was about to attack a kid, she'd killed it in an instant, small things like that were nothing to her. But in the end his mother had yelled at her because she had been scared by how close her gunblade had been to her son. That didn't help with her bad mood, she could have tried to say thanks, that kid was small enough to actually be harmed or killed by that thing even if it was something weak to her.

Lightning sighed in frustration, nothing was happening, everything was silent tonight. She could barely see a point of doing this when there was no point. She had to force herself not the kick the next object that was unlucky enough to be near her. She even wished now that there was some fiends about, even if they were weak as shit and a threat to civilians; it would make something to vent out her sudden anger on. Her ears picked up the sound of laughter, so quickly her head twisted around to see where it had come from. She saw a girl dragging a boy behind her to the back of a building where she couldn't see. She thought she recognised the boy but she couldn't put her finger on it, his brown hair was such a common colour, it could have been from anywhere.

She sighed again, it was only teenagers being stupid and nothing more. 'Stupid indeed' She thought to herself. She hadn't gotten a clear look but it wouldn't be surprising if they couldn't fight off monsters by themselves. She had the thought to go overthere and make them go back to their houses, but something stopped her. She had a weird feeling about them, but like how she couldn't figure out why she recognised the boy, she couldn't quite put her finger on why she coudn't get herself to move in that direction.

She rolled her eyes, her mind was being idiotic now. She didn't usually listen to her mind when it told her to go and do something like...go in the complete oposite direction. Why ever she was actually doing it now was beyond her.

The majority of the patrol went the same as it had all night. She'd only dispatched two fiends throughout the entire thing, and told some teenagers to go home and stop messing around at night time, she'd told them a behemoth would eat them if they didn't when they were being retarded and wouldn't listen. She honestly had no idea why she chose to say that; but whatever, it worked at least.

It was at the end when it went along a different route. It had all started with a small little laugh, which sounded like it had been said by a kid. But of course it certainly wasn't that.

"So how you doing soldier girl?" Came a voice she more than recognised.

She spun around to see the face of the girl that had caused her head injury no more than three weeks ago.

She stood leaning over a balcony of a house not so far away from her. Her blue-green hair was in a noticeably different hairstyle, it was tied in two ponytails and overlycurly. It reminded her of Vanille in a weird kind of way. What she wore was similar to a school uniform,which made her wonder what the crap had the girl been doing before hand.

"Nice to see you." She joked with the most smug expression on her face. Light took note that she wasn't wearing the piecing she'd had from their previous encounter.

"There is something wrong with you." She muttered angrily, which only caused the other to smile more.

"I heard that you know." She said in a sing song voice. "Thanks that's very nice of you to say." she concluded looking no less cheery. "I never get people speaking bad to me. It's nice to hear it every once in a while."

"This girl is completely nuts, how the hell is someone insulting you nice?" She didn't notice she'd said that out loud until the bluehead made a comment on it.

"How is it nice? Because I never get them even though I deserve it so much." She put her hands on her hips now with a stubborn expression, "But that's what I get from acting so nice to them."

Lightning was too caught in her childish act that she didn't take in full consideration that the woman was well aware of the soldier's hand falling to her gunblade. Her anger wasn't getting any better in this moment. What this girl was saying didn't make sense.

"Nice? What the hell do you mean nice? You're a murderer!" She yelled out, it slipping from her lips.

The smile that graced her lips disappeared for once, she tried not to be surprised, especially since it came back a second later.

"I am nice. it just depends on the person." She stated with a sad tone, despite wearing a bright smile. "If you're my friend, you will bring out my good personality, and I am nice. But if you're my victim, then you bring out 'Arianna'" She put emphasis on the last word.

"And then you're dead." She finished and put her fallen gaze back onto the soldier whose grip was ever tightening on her weapon's hilt.

"A name changes everything soldier girl, I could have met you before, but since I wasn't 'Arianna', you would never suspect me. Same goes for everyone." The smile left her lips.

Lightning listened closely to her words, from the way she was speaking she took it that Arianna wasn't her real name. This girl though same at the start, was now acting different from the time before when she'd encounted her. The time where she had caused her that head injury, the same one that Serah couldn't stop worring about. Subconsciously she moved one hand to her forehead where she had been hit, just in this moment she felt like she could feel it's pain again.

Arianna's expression changed to one close to worry. She rested her arms on the railings of the balcony and put her chin on her hands.

"I'm sorry about that, I'm not the type to hurt in anger, I usually only do it to kill. I have trouble with how hard I should hit, so I did it much harder than intended." She apologised.

Lightning seriously had to force herself not to let her anger show at that comment.

"You're the one that did it! Why are you sorry!" She screamed at her and pulled her gunblade out of it's holder aiming it at her.

Arianna's face went shocked for a second but then she made a move, she ducked underneath the railings and for a second it looked like she had completely disappeared. But then it clicked that there had been a hole in the balcony and there had been too much junk to see the bluehead duck underneath it. She raced ahead in it's direction but to her dismay when she got there she couldn't see the younger woman. She groaned, feeling damn pissed but continued to try and find her. She was moving about the junk in the area to see if she had hid herself among it but couldn't see her anywhere. After she failed there she moved around the whole area, her actual job at the moment completely forgotten.

She lashed out and kicked a trash can when the search came out with nothing. 'She'd done it again! How was she doing this?'

She forced all the anger she felt back inside, she must make a bad sight right now. She'd have to report this to her superiors later. For now she'll have to continue on her patrol, and hope to the goddess that she caught sight of her again.


Sorry for any mistakes I'm tired.

Reviews will be appreciated more than you know and shall help with my sanity, and I'll give you a nice big cookie as well.

Thanks for reading my baby

~Serah Villiers Valentine