Copyright infringement not intended. T for language and violence. Thanks for the review.
Note: This chapter is flashback/memory from when Kat was sixteen (or just about) and is put in to explain a bit more of what happened during the two years between the prologue and first chapter.
Here we go, chapter sixx... (: Hope you enjoy!
Six: Fair Fight.
xlx
It's alright, this could be a rough night.
So, hold tight, this is not a fair fight.
xlx
Katelyn grinned up at the heartily laughing man, allowing him to pick her up and crush her small body to his. She had missed this. The sun, the warmth, the feeling of being loved.
The feeling of being home.
Gongaga was her home, Midgar wasn't and would likely never be.
"My little SOLDIER girl returns home for the perilous and horrendous disasters of Midgar!" Her father crowed, bringing both of them into the manor, a seemingly permanent grin on his face as well as hers.
Oh, Gaia, had she missed this..
Damien, her father, was a charming man and an ex-SOLDIER. He hadn't let the horror of war affect him, not that she or her mother knew of, and she wished to be like him one day. Strong, important, respected and loved.
He had it all.
A woman dressed in a thin red silk dress swooped in from the backyard, gray eyes sparkling with love and joy. "My daughter! Oh, I've missed you so much!" She cried, plucking Katelyn from her father's arms easily and wrapping her own around the younger woman.
Katelyn sank into her mother's embrace, inhaling the comforting floral fragrance that she always had. This was home.
This was her life.
She wouldn't lose it for anything and neither would her father.
Two SOLDIER could defend this family perfectly well, almost too well.
"They're still not giving you trouble about being a girl, are they, little sister?" Nathan Harmon, her brother, asked, entering the sitting room with his twin sister in tow. Both beamed at her and Lyndsay skipped merrily to Katelyn's side.
She shook her head at her brother. "Not that I know of. A lot of people say it's stupid, but, apparently I'm catching on as well as the boys, so.." she shrugged, trailing off. Nathan scowled, handsome face contorting. She shrugged again, helplessly.
It wasn't her fault if people despised ShinRa's allowing women into SOLDIER.
She hadn't decided it.
"What do they know!" Lyndsay snapped and wrapped a slender arm around her shoulders. "Kate is just as strong and brave as any of those rude and dirty boys!"
Katelyn smirked at her sister, who was still under the impression that boys were ill-mannered and immature although her brother was the same age as her and certainly not ill-mannered.
Their mother would not stand for it.
"Ah, Lyn, I missed you so much," she murmured, ruffling her neatly braided hair. Lyndsay shrieked, hands flying to fix the disarray. "Where's Joey, Mother?"
Her mother glanced to the couch, a soft smile replacing the estactic grin.
"Right here, Kate!" A young, higher pitched boy shouted, bounding over and ripping her hand from Lyndsay's. "Did you meet Sephiroth? Did you? Did you?"
She giggled and picked up the eight year old boy, holding him close to her body. She loved this little boy with all her heart. If anything happened to him while she was in Midgar.. She wouldn't be able to live with herself.
The guilt would be too much.
"Yeah. He's pretty cool, I guess. My mentor's Genesis Rhapsodos. He's good, huh, Lyn?" Katelyn winked at her elder sister, who blushed a rosy pink colour.
This was the way it had been since they'd be little girls.
Lyndsay was the proper, decent and formal girl, always trying to be polite and correct and formal. Nauseatingly so.
While she was that, Katelyn was loud and brash and fell in love with someone or something too hard and too fast. Despite that, she lacked any concern of how her words affected people she didn't care for.
"Oh, hush."
She laughed and carried her younger brother to the backyard, not a care in the world.
She was on vacation.
She wasn't SOLDIER right now. She was Katelyn Harmon, only fifteen years old - nearly sixteen - and she was with her family.
That was all that mattered.
That was how her life should have been.
She knew it and so did the rest of her family.
xlx
"Do you like it much?"
Katelyn looked up at her mother from the forest floor, having gone for a walk with her and Joey, her brows furrowed in confusion. "Huh?"
Her mother sighed, stroking her daughter's hair lovingly and with a mother's patience. Katelyn sighed into the comforting touch, eyes darting back to the trees where Joey watched a squirrel. "Do you like SOLDIER much?"
Caught off guard by the question, she looked away from her brother, to her mother's brightly honest and open eyes. Not a secret between the two. Her mother would understand that, although she was thrilled to be home, she secretly wished she was back at ShinRa.
With Genesis.
Her face flushed at even the mere thought of his name. "I suppose. It's a lot of killing and blood," she answered after a moment's silence. "Nothing for you or Lyndsay. You have to hide it or else they'll call you weak or something."
It was true.
She could not show weakness nor queasiness in front of anyone, or else they'd assume she was too fragile for SOLDIER and send her back home.
It was her dream to be there. She'd do anything to make it a reality.
"Momma? Kate?"
Both women looked up at the little boy's frantic and frightened voice. Immediately, Katelyn got to her feet, holding her arms out for the boy. He ran to her, huddling into her, shaking violently. She scowled.
What was out there?
She prayed it was just a wolf or a bear. They posed no real threat to her..
But to her mother and Joey, they would.
She swore, giving her mother an apologetic look.
"Katelyn Harmon?" A voice shouted, the person hidden by the thick forest. Katelyn squinted through the foliage and blending sea of tree trunks, still finding no one. Not for the first time, she wished she was in First and had the enhanced vision that came with it.
"Yes?" She called back icily, shooting her mother and Joey a silencing look. If this person wanted her, they could have her.
There was no way she'd go down with a fight.
"Quit SOLDIER." They instructed.
She scoffed, unconsciously tightening her grasp on Joey until he winced. She let him go, ushering him to their mother. "No way in hell." She answered back, voice firm and stern, letting them know she was up to a fight if they wanted one.
"Do it, or you'll be dearly sorry."
Katelyn laughed now, she couldn't help it.
It was so pathetic and lame. Trying to scare her out of her dream? Hah! She was stronger and smarter than that!
"You'll be sorry if you do anything to make me sorry." She retorted to the invisible tormentor. Was this a dream or real, she wondered? "Show yourself and fight like man!"
As if they had been waiting for this since they arrived, her previously invisible tormentor dropped from a grand oak, arrow fitted into a beautifully crafted bow. He was older than her, but only by a few years, and had the air of a man who was used to blood and death.
Who wasn't afraid of killing someone.
Just like her.
She was thankful that she had a dagger on her, hidden by the thick 2nd Class uniform. It was nearly invisible. They would have to know her personally and have to be from SOLDIER to know about it.
There was no way this man would know.
"You're just a little girl, trying to be something you're not," he snarled at her. Katelyn's hand clenched around the hilt of her dagger, fingers digging into the hard leather. This again?
When would these damned people give it up?
She fought harder than any of the men and boys to stay in SOLDIER.
She could take on her mentor without trouble, for the love of Gaia!
"You're just a small-minded prick, trying to scare me. It's not going to work." She informed him, drawing the long knife from the sheath at her hip. "Let's fight. See whose trying to be something they're not."
The man sneered at her, drawing back the taut bowstring. The bow curved as it's string was tugged back, informing her that, although it was beautiful, it was not strong. Possibly just a cheap bow he'd bought for one use.
But, he knew how to use it. That mattered more than it's strength or price. He could force his strength out of it and that scared Katelyn more than anything.
Just when he was fixing his aim, she brought the hand that held her dagger up, watching in the corner of her eyes the expressions flickering on her mother's and Joey's faces. Her brother was afraid, and so was her mother, but there was something else there.
Something that made her feel warm and proud.
They were sure of her. They knew she'd do anything to keep them alive.
Or die trying.
She tossed the dagger just as the man loosed his arrow.
She hadn't seen his aim.
She couldn't have known, was too busy trying to perfect her own. If it hit him, he'd die instantaneously.
Her mother, brother and she would be safe.
Katelyn could try to persuade all of them to move to Midgar so she could keep an eye on them.
She'd do anything to keep them alive or die trying.
The arrow split through the air, whistling softly, just as the dagger spun and flipped in the air, intent on killing it's owner's foe.
Katelyn hadn't expected for the arrow to completely bypass her, it's head burying in the red silk of her mother's dress. Her mother gasped, looking down at the arrow that had gone straight through her shoulder, tearing open her dress.
Katelyn gagged, eyes wide as a volley of arrows assaulted her brother and mother, the stench of blood clogging her nose. She barely heard the man's grunt when her dagger sunk into his flesh, could barely hear her own breathing.
But, she could hear her mother's and Joey's.
Each breath they took was laboured, chest rising and falling unevenly. Her brother wept, his tears mingling with his blood, and her mother tried to console him, tried to pluck the shafts from his body.
Katelyn dropped to her knees besides her family, staring with wide and glazed eyes. She shouldn't truly believe that the sight before her was real, couldn't truly believe that she killed someone and that they had tried to kill her mother and brother.
She couldn't believe anything at that moment.
"No, no, no," she chanted under her breath, ripping the arrows from her mother's flesh and torn dress, that was slowly turning a crimson shade of red. Her mother winced as she did so, both women knowing that any attempts were futile.
Her life was bleeding out of her at dangerous amounts.
It was over but Katelyn refused to just sit there and do nothing.
If there was anything she was, she was stubborn as hell.
"Katelyn, angel," her mother murmured and placed a hand on hers, stilling their frantic and futile pulling. "I'll be fine. Tend to Joey."
Numbly, Katelyn nodded, crawling to her brother.
His tears and blood soaked the ground around him. Her eyes welled with tears, as well, throat clenching painfully.
"I wish I could meet Sephiroth," he had said once, before she had joined SOLDIER. He'd only been six, but he idolized the man like Genesis loved LOVELESS. To the point where it was unhealthy.
She wished he could have met Sephiroth, too.
She would do anything to make his dream a reality.
"Would he like me, Kate?" Joey rasped, blood colouring his teeth and streaming down his young face. Her breath caught and a broken sob-laugh came through her lips, tears now flowing down her face and mixing with his bloodied face.
Katelyn didn't have to ask who he was.
"Of course. Who wouldn't like you, Joe?" She muttered, shaking her head good-naturedly and trying her best to grin. "I'm so sorry you couldn't have met him.."
His eyes, glazing over for a moment before he blinked, turned to her, bright and innocent. "Tell me about him, sissy," he instructed, voice hoarse and thick with blood.
She wracked her brain, eyes darting to her mother, who was watching them with a soft expression. She didn't know how she was still alive, unless she was forcing herself to. Just to see her.
Katelyn couldn't stand this waiting, this heart break.
She wanted nothing more than to get up and leave them, but she couldn't. She wouldn't even try.
They were the ones she loved the most.
She'd be damned if she left them when they needed her.
"Alright. Well, he can a bit mean and cold at times, but he usually has a good reason to. I don't really know him other than that he's my mentor's friend, and I barely see him. But, he seems like a good guy." She scrunched up her nose and stuck her tongue at her brother. "Reminds me of you. Stubborn and protective and strong." Her voice broke and breath hitched. "Oh, Gaia, Joe, you're so damn strong! Why is this you? You're only eight!"
Joey laughed weakly, having to turn and cough up a scary amount of blood afterward.
Her heart was breaking.
Her heart was freezing over.
She hated this.
She wanted it to end.
"I have always loved you," Katelyn reminded him, stroking back his dark looks. "Never forget that, little brother."
Blood gurgled out of his mouth, chest rising once and body spasming for a split second before he went still. Completely still.
Her breath caught, hitching in her throat painfully and she couldn't breathe at all.
She didn't want it to end.
She wanted her brother, alive and happy.
Hoping for the best, but knowing the worst, Katelyn glanced to her mother. Her eyes were shut, a wide loving smile on her face. How had she not noticed? How had she been so careless?
She thought he meant her life, not theirs!
She would gladly take their place if it meant they'd be alive. She didn't care, not anymore.
This was because of love.
This horrible, gut-wrenching, deadly and heart-breaking feeling was a result of love.
She had lost the ones she loved because she had been too stupid to think the man would use her family against her.
That was that.
Love to Katelyn was now a lost cause, especially if it was going to hurt this much.
What was the point?
Several hundred or thousand happy moments..
Compared to one of utter pain that made you regret it all, made you wish that you hadn't been so close, thinking that if you hadn't been, then maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt as much as it did?
There was no point.
She was not a masochist.
Katelyn didn't enjoy pain.
And, now, she most certainly did not enjoy love.
She would have done anything to keep them alive.
Even die for them.
She never got that option.
She wished with everything in her that she had. She would've laid down her life for Joey and her mother in an instant, would've gone to hell and back to ensure their safety.
She never got a chance.
xlx
Katelyn - or, now Kat, as all of her other names reminded her of people that no longer lived, no longer called her by that - Harmon never got what she wanted.
Not her pony she wanted when she was five.
Not her sword she wanted when she was nine.
Not her bow she wanted when she was eleven.
Not her bike she wanted when she was fourteen.
And, she never got what she wanted so desperately she'd die for.
Her family.
No. She never got what she wanted.
That had always been Lyndsay.
xlx
She up and died and left you in a fall you could not forget,
You were too young, you said,
"Not yet, not yet, not yet."
xlx
So..?
What did you think?
I would have had this out earlier but that hurricane Earl hit a few hours ago here and I spent most of the time standing outside and staring at trees. :o
Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed!
Reviewww! (:
Until next time,
xWhiteRainx
