Sorry about the wait people, but work has been just a big asshole lately.


Chapter 9: ...Shatters Like Glass

"I never thought it would do that..." Claire marveled as she laid next to Pete on the slight slope.

"I know, that's so cool." Pete agreed as they both stared up at the night sky with their night vision goggles. The stars shone more brilliant and bright then they had ever seen before thanks to the NVGs. For a device that they had learned to despise for being close to useless, not to mention adding unnecessary weight to their helmets, they had finally found a use for them: passing the time while out on night sentry. "Good to know that night vision is at least useful for star gazers." Pete chuckled as he sat up.

"No doubt." Claire nodded. She sat up as well and pivoted the NVG's off her face before blinking a few times, her eyes not adjusted to the darkness. "What time is it?"

Pete looked at his watch, "3:45." He told her as she stood up.

"Come on, let's go wake up our replacements." She said, Pete standing up to follow her. They walked along the ridge in silence towards their bivouac site where the rest of the course was sleeping. It was week 14, and they were on the last phase of urban operations. After two weeks of practicing and fine tuning their fighting skills in an urban environment, they were about to conduct one last assault on a small training village. They had never been to the village yet, which was nothing but a few dozen plywood huts and houses, and were unsure of all the tricks and traps that awaited them there. Two days of rehearsals, going over every step they would take upon reaching the village, and whose job was what, had left them feeling fairly confident with themselves but the battleschool's enemy force had a reputation for being brutally resourceful and creative when it came to defensive measures. At first light, the course's attack would commence where they would be evaluated as a whole.

Claire and Pete wandered through the darkness until they reached the bivouac which was held in a bowl at the bottom of the hill. There were five eight-man tents set up, all within a few meters of each other, the instructors sleeping off somewhere else. Claire found her section's tent and made her way to the door, making sure not to trip over any of the draw strings. Her and Pete entered the tent, a small lantern hung from the center pole and flickered weakly, indicating it was about to die. There were six sleeping forms inside the tent, all huddled together for warmth.

"Sentry..." Pete whispered to one of the sleeping individuals as he tapped on the person's sleeping bag.

Claire did the same to another but instead of politely tapping on their sleeping bag, she kicked their feet as she walked by, "Get up...sentry." She mumbled before sitting on her own sleeping space. She began to unlace her boots as Cloud poked his head out of the top of his sleeping bag and squinted in the low light. He breathed deep and groaned quietly while he leaned on his elbow, not wanting to leave his warm sleeping bag.

"What time is it?" He asked with a yawn.

"Almost four...so get up." Claire told him as she stripped down to her combats.

Cloud sighed and slowly began to get out of his sleeping bag and dressed, his sentry partner, Whitey, doing the same. "You know, you're supposed to wait at the sentry point until we come and relieve you..." Cloud pointed out with a small smirk.

"Well..." Claire began as she laid down, "You'd better go tell on us..."

"Was just a joke..." Cloud mumbled to himself in annoyance. The two replacements spent the next 10 minutes slowly getting ready for their sentry shift, taking as long as they could, for they were in no rush to go stand on a hill in the dark for a couple hours.

"Hey..." Whitey whispered as he cocked his head sideways, "You hear that?"

Cloud stopped moving and frowned as he listened carefully, "Sounds like a lot of people moving around out there..." The two of them quickly exited the tent to investigate. The moment they stepped out of the tent, several dark figures that were standing amongst the tents began shooting their weapons into the air. Cloud squinted from the bright flashes of gunfire as the men laid back on the triggers of their weapons and let loose their entire magazines in one long burst.

"Pull pole!" One of the men shouted, Cloud instantly recognizing the voice as one of the instructors.

"Shit," Cloud swore as he and Whitey rushed back inside their tent. They found their section mates just beginning to poke their heads out of their sleeping bags in confusion and anger, "Pull pole! Come on, get up!"

"Get the fuck out of those tents!" One of the instructors screamed from outside. The gunfire had already woken the sleeping recruits up who were only beginning to get out of their sleeping bags. Almost every one of them was grumbling and cursing about having to get up; pack all of their stuff up, and take down the tent in the pitch black.

"...I get back from my sentry shift...get kitted down...into my sleeping bag..." Claire fumed through clenched teeth as she shoved her sleeping bag into the valise.

"Turn those fucking lights off!" An instructor bellowed. After the mad scramble to pack up their kit, the course quickly tore down the tents and charged off into darkness, following their livid instructors to a new position.

Twenty minutes of dead quiet walking later, they were halted and ordered to drop their rucks and tents.

"I'm sure you're all wondering why we made this little trip tonight..." One of the sergeants began as he talked to the dozens of faces obscured by the darkness that surrounded them. "We weren't planning on being assholes and pulling pole on you, but master corporal Rotcliff went to check on the sentries to make sure they were awake...only to find that there were none even out there!" He boomed at the end of the sentence. "He even waited for 15 minutes and still no sentries showed up!"

"What the fuck is wrong with you people!" Another sergeant fumed, "This is basic shit, you all know better then this. Who's got the sentry list for the night? We're going to find out what went wrong."

Claire sighed with a groan as the course senior pulled out a small notepad and handed the list to the course warrant. A red light flashed as the warrant aimed it at the paper and read over the names. Claire knew a shitstorm was about to hit her and Pete but she was just so tired that she didn't care anymore.

"Farron! Crawford! Where the fuck are you?" The warrant barked out.

"Warrant." Claire and Pete answered in unison.

"Where the hell were you? It says you guys were on from two until four." The warrant questioned angrily.

"We left at 3:45 to go wake our replacements." Pete explained quickly.

"And did you return to the sentry point until they relieved you?"

"No warrant..." Pete answered cautiously.

"Why the fuck not!" One of the sergeants yelled as he walked up to Pete. Pete had nothing to say that would save him. He looked at Claire for help who stood there with a bored look on her face. "Well! Farron? What about you? Why didn't you return to the sentry point?" Claire shrugged and remained silent, not wanting to open her mouth because she knew it would lead somewhere worse. "Any fucking day Farron!" He screamed, a few inches away from her face.

She scowled and turned her head sideways to get her face away from his. "I don't know.." She finally blurted out.

The instructor merely shook his head in disgust and walked back to his peers. "We'll deal with this later. Right now, you all have shell scrapes to dig. Forget about putting those tents up, you're all going to be on sentry for the rest of the night." He informed to a collective dropping of hearts. "Get to it! Make sure you all have eyes on the village."

Claire was feeling quite similar to everytime during basic when the entire course had to pay for her mistakes. This time it wasn't for talking back however, she actually made a punishment-worthy mistake. As her and Pete took turns digging their shallow shell scrape, they could hear the grumblings and resentment directed at them from the people that surrounded them. To be honest though, she believed that part of the fault lay with Cloud and Whitey, who purposely took their time getting ready. Playing the blame game wasn't going to change anything or anyone's mind so she would just suck it up and continue digging.

"It's a good thing we're not using real bullets, otherwise I think we might get shot in the back during the attack in a few hours." Pete joked halfheartedly.

"Hmph," Claire huffed with a smirk, "Yeah and I can think of another two people who would probably be the victim of a little friendly fire." She said in a low tone as she flashed her eyes over to Cloud's foxhole.

"Yeah no shit eh?" Pete agreed while standing up, "Hey!" He shouted at Cloud who looked over, "Thanks for doing us that solid, buddy-fucker."

Cloud shoved his shovel into the dirt and climbed out of his hole before walking over to his two friends. "What?"

"Forget it man." Pete shook his head.

"I told you did I not?" Cloud scowled as he stared hard at Claire, "I told you, you're supposed to go back to the sentry point and wait."

Claire stopped shoveling, stood up straight and turned to face Cloud, "I know the rules," She snapped, "We were out there for an hour and 45 minutes, who the hell cares about 15 minutes? It's a stupid rule. Besides, if you didn't take your time getting ready, none of this would have happened."

"Don't try to pin this on me, this is just another example of you getting everyone in shit because you don't feel like following a rule that EVERYONE else follows." He retorted furiously.

"Go back to your hole, Strife." Claire told him with a dangerously calm tone as her eyes darted to his, daring him to continue arguing with her.

Cloud huffed and shook his head, "You're ridiculous." He spat before turning and leaving. Storming back to his shell scrape several meters away, he jumped back into it and continued digging. "Do some goddamn work once in awhile, Whitey!" He exploded when he noticed Whitey was still resting next to their hole.

"Shut the fuck up over there!" An instructor's voice sounded from some distance away.

Claire rested her head on the sights of her weapon as she laid in the long, tall grass. She kept her gaze on sergeant Gallagher who was laying down just to her front but felt her eyelids becoming heavy. The village was just over the berm in front of them about 50 meters away. They had spent the last couple hours moving carefully and quietly into position for attack. Very soon, the hardest part of the operation would begin. The insertion; observation, and approach had gone off without a hitch but the next two phases were the hardest: The attack and clearing. To add a level of realism to the training, the two combating forces wore sensors on their uniforms, and had lasers attached to their weapons. The sensors on their weapons told the laser when the weapon was being fired and sent an invisible laser beam in the direction the barrel was pointing. If the laser hit someone, the sensors they were wearing would detect it and beep continuously until the person laid down on the ground completely still.

"One minute." Gallagher said quietly over his shoulder to his section as he looked at his watch. Claire raised her head slightly to see if she could get a look at the village but the berm was still blocking her view. Her section and 1 section were attacking from the south and were to push west into the village while 3 and 4 section attacked from the east and pushed north. There were 32 buildings to clear, not to mention the open ground to cover before they even reached the village. She doubted they would clear half of the place before every one of them was killed. They had been reminded countless times to watch for booby-traps of every sort, more then a few recruits had actually died at that village during past courses. "Let's move." Gallagher grunted as he hopped to his feet and began moving towards the berm. The fourteen recruits behind him followed without as much as a word. The simultaneous attack on the town was underway, so far the only sound was the shaky breathing of the recruits as they made their way closer.

Claire eyed every window and open door of every building as they neared the town, looking for the silhouette of a person or weapon. The crack of gunfire sounded from the other side of the town, letting them know that the other assault force had been spotted. "Pick it up!" Gallagher barked as they charged towards the first building in an extended line. Claire pumped her legs faster, adrenaline surging through her despite it only being training.

"There's one!" Pete, who was a few people down from Claire, shouted. He raised his weapon and pointed at a two story building further into the town, a man dressed in black standing on the roof. Pete began shooting on the run, several of his section members doing the same. The op-for quickly looked in their direction before turning and ducking out of their line of sight.

"Stop firing!" Gallagher yelled, furious that they would give their position away. They had the element of surprise, but now they had started firing before they even entered the town. "Goddamnit!" The fifth-teen of them finally made it to the first building, slamming into the side of it. "You dumb fucks!" The furious sergeant boomed at Pete and the others who had opened fire. "Strife! Get that door open!" He yelled at Cloud who was closest to the door. Cloud immediately ran up to the door and tried opening it, but found it locked.

"Locked!" He informed.

"Kick it open!"

Cloud attempted to kick the heavy metal door open but it wouldn't budge. "Sergeant!" Pete shouted to Gallagher, "Look." He pointed to the next floor which had an open top and a railing around the edge. "We could go up there!"

"Good idea, someone boost him up." Gallagher ordered, not wanting to waste anymore time trying to find a way into the building. Whitey made a brace with his hands and knee as Pete slung his weapon and stepped onto him. He boosted Pete up the side of the building while the rest of them watched the corners for any op-for.

Pete peered over the edge to next floor, finding it empty. "It's clear!" He shouted down before grabbing a hold of the railing. As he went to pull himself up, the railing wobbled before coming loose and sliding off the edge towards Pete. "Oh shit!" Pete swore as the long, heavy metal railing came crashing down ontop of him. The five meter long railing crashed down ontop of the fifth-teen people, cracking many of them on the head. Nine of them were instantly flattened underneath the heavy railing and lay groaning in pain underneath it.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Gallagher growled in pain as he lifted the railing off everyone and tossed it away by himself. Cloud had taken one step towards one of his comrades who was lying in pain on ground in order to help, when the door he was previously watching literally exploded off its hinges and knocked him over. He crashed to the ground with the door ontop of him and coughed in the ensuing smoke and dust. Claire, who was crouched on the ground holding her shoulder from where the railing hit her, looked at where the door used to be and saw two op-for bolt from the entrance. With one hand still on her weapon, she let loose a long burst at them, almost instantly hearing the distinct beeping that sounds when a person is hit. Claire smirked when she saw them reluctantly stop firing and lay on the ground, pretending to be dead. They may have had tricks such as unscrewing the bolts that hold a railing to a floor but their reflexes when it came to shooting weren't the fastest.

"Everyone good!" Gallagher shouted to his roughed up teams. They all gathered themselves up and gave him the a-ok. Claire kicked the door off of Cloud and couldn't help but laugh at how disorientated he had become because of the explosion. His eyes were unfocused, his ears were ringing like church bells, and his face was covered with dust.

"Come on." Claire grunted as she pulled him up.

"That was a dirty trick..." Gallagher growled as he kicked one of the op-for's boots. "Let's clear this fucking building!" He shouted in frustration before leading the first five people through the door. The rest of them waited outside, watching into the town for any op-for. They could hear intense gunfire coming from across the town where the other assault force was.

"You okay?" Claire turned to Pete, noticing him leaning against the wall for support and struggling to breathe.

"The railing...crushed...my chest." He coughed weakly, holding his badly bruised ribs. Several other people were also groaning in pain and holding where they had been struck by the railing when it fell, Claire included.

"Clear!" Gallagher screamed from inside the building. "Friendlies coming out!" He yelled before leading the team he took in out. "Next building, lets fucking move!" He pointed to the next building they were to clear, which was about 50 meters away. "Strife! You're first...go!" He yelled. "We'll go in through that window on the left side of the building...head for there."

"Okay...!" Cloud responded shakily and nervously. He paused for a moment before bolting past the safety of the building and out into the open ground. Running as fast as he could, and with his eyes scanning every roof; doorway, window, and corner, that he forgot to watch where he was going and ended up tripping in a small depression in the ground. He crashed headfirst into the gravel and slid a few feet before coming to a stop, keeping completely still for a few moments while he lay in utter embarrassment.

"Strife!" Gallagher yelled after him in anger and disbelief. "What are you doing!" As Cloud lifted his head to pull himself up, he heard the familiar beeping coming from the sensors on his body.

"Shit..." He swore in bitter disappointment that he was the first one to die. He dropped his head back onto the ground and took his hands off his weapon. "I'm hit!" He yelled back to his comrades who were looking at him like he had some sort of crippling mental handicap. Cloud could hear Gallagher ranting and raving about something but he no longer cared, the game was over for him now, he was just going to lay there and rest. He did however, attempt to locate his assailant but to no avail. Boots rushed by him towards the building he was aiming for, many of his comrades either laughing at him as they ran by or making snide remarks. They were all shooting on the run, likely at whoever had shot him. Cloud continued watching their small attack on the next building, from his vantage point he could see most of the roof and was able to catch a glimpse of an op-for sneaking around on top. Gallagher and his teams couldn't see the man because they were pressed up against the building, getting ready to enter it through one of the windows. Cloud almost felt like yelling a warning to them but decided it was too much effort to raise his head and open his mouth, not to mention he was supposed to be dead.

Just before Gallagher led his team into the building, Cloud saw the op-for man on the roof toss what looked like a smoke grenade over the edge down ontop of the attacking force. It began smoking instantly and obscured Cloud's entire view of what was happening.

"Fuck! Someone toss that smoke grenade out of here!" Gallagher ordered as he wrinkled his nose at the unpleasant smelling white smoke. Claire quickly hurried over to the smoke grenade and reached down to pick it up. Squinting through the smoke that was spewing from it, she noticed that there was a white cylinder gun-taped to the grenade...which was beginning to whistle. Her eyes went wide and she froze a moment as she stared at the mini-bomb.

"Arty-arty sim!" She cried before leaping backwards. The whistling grew louder for a second longer before the artillery sim detonated, blasting apart the smoke grenade and sending both searing hot liquid chemicals and razor sharp steel fragments from the body of the smoke grenade in all directions. Before Claire hit the ground, she felt an excruciating pain in her right leg. Landing hard on the ground, she quickly turned to look at her leg to find smoke coming from her pant leg, near the calf. There was an intense burning pain which wasn't ceasing and she couldn't help from crying out. Someone else was screaming dreadfully loud, and there was much swearing going on around her. She quickly batted at her leg to try and stop whatever was burning but it only seemed to intensify the pain. It felt as though a pot of boiling water had been dumped on her leg, only the pain was growing. Claire looked for help but found herself completely shrouded in white smoke from the grenade.

Cloud blinked in surprise when he heard the explosion and saw his comrades disappear in a large cloud of white smoke. Almost immediately he heard some screaming and yelling coming from the cloud. He stood up and started began moving towards the scene, his walk turning into a run at the concern for his friends.

"...hold him down..." Cloud heard Gallagher's voice as he neared the dense smoke. Rushing into it, he tripped over someone laying on the ground and looked to see Claire sprawled out. She was lying face down, one hand clutching her leg, and one hand squeezing a fist of gravel.

"Claire?" He said her name as he crawled over to her. She looked up, her eyes were wide and her face was shaking uncontrollably. "You alright?" He could tell by the look on her face that she was in an enormous amount of pain.

"...NO!" She quickly blurted out before going back to biting her lip to the point of bleeding.

"Whoever has the fucking radio, get on it and tell training control we have a NO DUFF situation." Gallagher barked out over someone's loud screaming. Cloud crawled up next to Claire and finally noticed the smoke that was pouring from her pant leg. He looked around to see if anyone was coming to help but found that they were still engulfed in smoke.

"Hold on.." He said as he jumped over to her right side and tore open her pant leg where the smoke was pouring from, finding her calf badly burnt. He pulled out his canteen and quickly dumped the contents onto her leg, causing her to cry out in pain. Whatever was causing it to smoke, stopped. The burning liquids on her leg washed away but the water did little to stop the pain. "What the hell happened?" Cloud asked her, as he watched her writhe in pain. "Hey! Farron's hurt too!" Cloud shouted into the smoke as it eventually began to dissipate. He was able to make out several people as they crowded around a screaming individual lying on the ground. "Is that Whitey?"

"Field Amb is on it's way sergeant!" Someone shouted.

"Who else was hit?" Gallagher asked as the smoke cleared out.

"Farron!" Claire shouted herself through clenched teeth. Cloud stood up and took a step back as several people rushed over in aid of Claire. He looked around at the chaos, everybody yelling and the injured people groaning loudly in pain. Most of the corrosive liquid that spewed from the smoke grenade when it was exploded by the artillery sim had sprayed on Claire's leg but some had also hit Whitey in the face. Two other people had taken chunks of the smoke canister in various parts of their body. Pete was busy pointing and yelling at the op-for on the roof, while Gallagher was trying to control the hectic situation.

"If you can have that incident report written up for tomorrow, that would great. There will be an investigation into what happened, which you will be apart of." The course officer, Lieutenant Sterling told Claire as she laid in her bed at the shacks. She nodded in understanding and grimaced as she sat up.

"When will I be going back?"

"Back where?"

"To the field, with everyone else." Claire said with a frown.

"Um, you won't be." The officer frowned in return, "You will be medically RTU'd back to PAT platoon in Midgar."

"What!" Claire blurted out, stunned that she was being kicked off course. "I can walk, run, do whatever. It's just a few burns." She argued.

"The MO said that there's a serious risk of infection if you stay in the field. To be honest I don't want you out there if you're just going to get hurt again." Sterling told her as he crossed his arms.

"Sir, that's ridiculous." Claire huffed, "All I'm required to do is change the bandage once a day. In a week I won't even have to apply bandages anymore."

"All you're going to do is cause yourself more pain by going back out. There will be another course soon enough." Sterling said with a shake of his head.

"I'm fine," Claire told him as she stood up to prove her point, "It hurt like hell when it happened, but all it feels like is a sunburn now." She lied while clenching her leg muscles to combat the stinging. "I'll be totally fine in a week..."

"Let me see it..."

Okay..." Claire bent down and carefully peeled the medical tape off of the bandage on her leg. She tried not to show any signs of pain as she removed the thick damp bandage, revealing several small blot-like yellowish burns on the outside of her calf. The burns had blistered but weren't looking as repulsive as she remembered.

The officer grimaced as he looked at her nasty wound, "Must've burned like hell."

"Yes sir." Claire replied before covering the wound back up for it was starting to sting once again.

"..and you're sure that you'll be able to carry on with the rest of the course?" The officer asked, very seriously.

"Yes, yes sir." Claire said with confidence.

"You won't receive any special treatment out there because you're injured...you'll have to do everything that everyone else does...and if you get more hurt, it's going to be my ass." Sterling warned.

"I'll suck it up sir. It's just five more weeks."

Sterling frowned and bit his lip while deep in thought. Claire knew she would be putting herself through almost intolerable pain if she was to go back, but she didn't want to redo the course and risk losing her posting to Junon. "I'll talk it over with the course warrant. For now, you'll stay here on base until we reach our decision."

Cloud watched as a small hornet buzzed around Pete's head before diving into the ration he was eating. Cloud almost choked on his food when he saw the look Pete gave at having the bug fly into his food. "Aww what the hell...?" Pete grimaced as he looked into the small packet of beans and wieners he was eating. "Great..." He said sarcastically before closing the packet and tossing it back into the ration bag.

"Beans and wieners suck anyway." Cloud offered while he ate his own ration.

"I guess...hey, do you have any eyedrops left?" Pete asked him hopefully. Cloud rummaged through his pockets until he found a thumb size bottle of eyedrops. Holding it up to eye level, he saw that there was only a few drops left.

"Here, have the rest." He said before tossing it to him. Pete thanked him and pulled out his canteen, quickly squirting the remainder of the bottle into it and taking a gulp of the tainted water.

"It's been like four days..." Pete said feeling sorry for himself, hinting at his own constipation caused by the rations which were designed to do so.

"Finish up eating...kit up and get ready to move." The course warrant barked out to his troops. "We have to link up with the armoured squadron by 1400."

Cloud sighed and shoved his half eaten rations back into his ruck. He looked around the course which were grouped in their sections eating lunch next to a dirt road. The summer heat was sweltering and the bugs were relentless, they hadn't had a shower or good night's sleep in weeks but they had all grown accustomed to the field life.

As the course got loaded up with all of their equipment and into formation on the road, a grey range truck sped down the road towards them, pulling off to the side as it reached them. They all turned to see Claire get out of the passenger side, grab her rucksack out of the box and join them in formation. Pete and Cloud exchanged looks of confusion as she walked towards them, having thought that she was gone for good.

"Have a good vacation, Farron?" Gallagher grinned as she walked by him.

"Yeah, went to Costal Del Sol. Spent some time on the beach..." She replied casually to which he huffed.

"Not even limping eh?" Pete commented as she walked up next to him and Cloud. "You good to go?"

"That's why I'm here."

"You see Whitey at the hospital?" Cloud asked.

"There was a bandage covering his face. I don't know how badly he's burnt though." She said, remembering back.

"Are you sure you're okay? I mean, you were pretty messed up..." Cloud said with a touch of concern.

"It's been three days...I'm good now." She assured him.

"Alright, let move out!" The course warrant interrupted them with shouting as he started walking down the road. "Ack Ack formation."

"Farron, take the sustained firing kit," Gallagher instructed as he lifted the heavy bag off of one of his troop's rucksack. "We're down one man and if you're out here, that means you can carry your share..." He said as he placed the bag ontop of her ruck. She winced as the added weight put more pressure on her already throbbing leg. "Let's get going before the warrant starts yelling..."

Two hours and 11 kilometers later, the 28 candidates and their instructors arrived at their rally point with the armoured squadron. There were eight APCs and four tanks that they would be training with for convoy operations.

Dropping their heavy rucks and kit, Cloud's section hydrated in the iron ring while they waited for orders.

"Did anyone see how far back Farron was?" Gallagher asked his troops, wondering how far back she had fallen out. His section shrugged, having been concentrating on their own discomfort the entire march. "Someone go back to the road and check to see if she's on her way."

Cloud looked around to see if anyone was moving to go check but found that they were all too exhausted to bother. "Guess I'll go..." He sighed in annoyance with his comrades. Grabbing his weapon, he hurried back to the road from the armoured hide in the trees. Looking down the road, he saw her almost instantly, only about a hundred meters back. She was making her way towards him, a limp to her walk now. He hurried to her, knowing her leg must have been causing her trouble for he had never known her to drop out of any march before.

"You okay Claire?" He called as he neared her.

"Yep." She forced out in-between labored breaths.

"Here, give me the tripod." He said as he reached her. She gave it up without a word, grateful for the slight ease in discomfort.

"Give me a second." She bent over so that her heavy pack was resting completely on her back instead of her aching shoulders.

"How's your leg?" He asked, knowing it must have killed.

"Hurts...a lot." She squeaked before coughing.

"Give me your ruck too."

"No," She said standing up straight. "I've almost made it."

Cloud noticed her eyes were completely bloodshot and she had a sort of twisted look on her face. "Are-are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes, let's go-" She took one step with her injured leg and it buckled the moment she put her weight on it. The only thing that stopped her from falling onto her front was her jamming her rifle muzzle into the gravel and holding herself up with it.

"Whoa-shit, easy." Cloud said with concern as he grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. The brief pause in which she had rested, caused the intense pain to stop but she was unprepared for it once she started walking again. "Just, umm...sit down. I'll go get someone." Cloud told her as he went to help her sit down.

"What?" She looked at him like he was crazy, "No Cloud, just give me a second. I'll be fine."

"You're obviously not fine." He scowled.

"Just give me a second. I'll be able to make it there by myself." She argued.

"I can see you're hurt, I don't see what you're trying to prove. Just wait here I'll-"

"If you go tell them I'm out here unable to walk, what do you think is going to happen to me?" Claire snapped as she stared hard at him.

"Uhh, well..."

"I'll be kicked off course. They'll send me back to PAT, back to Midgar, where I'll have to wait for another course. Which means I won't get to go home." She explained quickly. "Now please, just let me do this..." Cloud took his arm off of her and took a step back, not wanting to argue anymore.

"Well let's go then," He said impatiently, "We were about to get orders before I left." Claire swallowed hard and tried to take another step, this time finding it a little more bearable.

"Okay, I'm good.." She said as she began walking normally again.

The two of them joined the rest of the course in the armoured ring, just before they had an o-group on what would be happening next.

"What's going on Farron?" Gallagher frowned when he saw her.

"Sorry sergeant, leg's still a little sore. I'm good though." She explained as she kitted down.

"You sure?"

"Yeah..." She nodded while drinking from her canteen.

Two hours later, after a less than extensive class on convoy ops, the course and their armoured counter-parts mounted up in their vehicles and began their move. Cloud's section was in the lead APC, keeping them out of all the dust that the vehicles created on the dirt road. The APC was a small six-wheeled armoured troop carrying vehicle that held 8 people. It was almost box like and had no armaments on it other then the smoke grenade launchers on the side. It's only means of protection were from the crew hatches on the top of vehicle that were located at the back where two riflemen could stand out with their top halves exposed. Claire was one of the lucky ones who was able to get one of the sentry hatches and enjoy the breeze. She leaned on her good leg as she stood in the open hatch, grateful that for once, she wasn't walking everywhere. The march to hook up with the squadron had been even more brutal then she had feared. The burns on her leg were still open wounds so during the march, they began to sting terribly from sweat. It had been the most grueling ordeal of her life. It would have been hard enough without the injury.

As they sped along, Claire could hear the people in the crew compartment at her feet complaining about the insufferable heat inside the vehicle. She did feel sorry for them, but at the same time she was in more discomfort then they were.

"...you don't look so good.." Pete's voice sounded from below. He sat on one of the two benches, Cloud sitting across from him.

"I don't do well in vehicles." Cloud mumbled, feeling queasy. Driving in an armoured vehicle makes regular people motion sick, so Cloud was having quite a rough time.

"You should switch with one of the air sentries," Pete suggested, raising his voice over the sound of the loud engine. Getting up, Pete made his way to the back of the vehicle and nudged the sentry opposite of Claire in the leg. The man poked his head down into the dark compartment as Pete squinted through the bright hatch. "Hey, can you switch with Strife? He's feeling really sick down here..." The man shrugged and stepped down, taking Cloud's seat as Cloud went and stepped up into the hatch. He breathed deep as the wind whipped at him, enjoying the somewhat cooler air. He rested his weapon on the top of the vehicle and leaned against it before looking over at Claire.

She looked at him and pulled down the brown handkerchief that was covering her nose and mouth, "Whats up?"

"Not feeling the greatest.." He said as he gave a halfhearted laugh at himself. "What about you? How's the leg."

"Not too bad," She said, trying to talk over the sound of the wind. "I should be okay as long as we don't have to march for another 11 kilometers."

"I don't think I could do another 11 neither," Cloud agreed, "The one good thing to come from getting badly burned like you did, was that at least you got to go in and get a few showers."

"I don't think it was really worth it." Claire frowned with an odd smirk.

"I can't believe that they kept you on course. I saw those burns...they didn't look too good." Cloud told her as the convoy entered a large wooded area.

"I had to convince the officer to keep me on, I just want this all to be over so I can go home." She explained.

"..and start your new job at the headquarters in Junon." Cloud grinned.

Claire narrowed her eyes at him, "Yeah...not too excited about that."

"You could always ask for a new posting a couple years down the road. Who knows, maybe we'll end up working together again." He shrugged.

"Well, let's hope it never comes to that..." She said sarcastically to which Cloud smirked, "We've been working together in the same section for quite awhile...since basic. It'll be different not having you or even Pete around to bug me. I guess you could say..I'll miss you...somewhat." She admitted, fairly awkwardly. Cloud nodded and agreed with her. Even though she was a pain sometimes, he was going to miss her. She had more drive and determination then anyone he knew but at the same time balanced it out with dose of ignorance.

'..performed above her grade.' Claire read the final line on her end course report, a smug smile forming on her lips as she signed the page and handed it back to sergeant Gallagher. Course done, no more room inspections, 4am mornings, endless ruck marches, or assholes yelling in her face. The entire course, which had started with 32 students and ended with 25, had gathered one last time in the lecture theater to sign their course reports, effectively ending their battleschool experience. They had all toughed it out through the field portion and made it back to the comfort of the shacks. After hours of post-ex work: cleaning weapons; pioneer stores, tents, and equipment, everything was done and the only thing that was left for them to do was their graduation parade which was the following day. The course was in moderately good spirits, having just completed the hardest thing they've ever had to do in their lives, and now they were anxious to get to their first posting.

The door to the lecture theater opened and the course warrant poked his head inside. "Instructors..." He called to them as they were all finishing up collecting the signed course reports. The eight instructors exited the room leaving the course to talk amongst themselves. Almost an entire hour passed before the instructors returned, many of them sporting troubled looks. The course warrant and officer stood at the front of the room while the rest of the instructors stood off to the side.

"Do you want to sir...?" The course warrant asked in a low tone as the officer stood thinking.

"Yeah...yeah I'll do it." He said as he crossed his arms. "Okay guys, listen up.." He began as he raised his voice so everyone could hear him, "For most of you, you're about to experience the unpredictability of this job. I'll start off with what happened first before I explain how it affects you." He paused a moment to think before starting, "I don't know how many of you know, but we, as in the Shinra Guard, have several small outposts in Wutai's southern provinces. These are mainly to keep an eye on the several independent factions and tribes that are separate from the main body of Wutai's government. Obviously we were in a war with Wutai in which we won, so it's necessary to keep tabs on the people that have proved troublesome for Shinra and their interests..." As he talked, Cloud thought for a moment that they were all going to get posted to Wutai. "Anyway, one of our outposts reported last week that there was a revolt at one of the villages in southern Wutai. Apparently they're refusing to pay a tax that was imposed on them and during this little 'protest' several guardsmen were killed. These outposts are only about 20 men in size so it's not like they have the strength to enforce much...and this week two more outposts have reported uprisings in their areas of operation. The heads at Shinra have decided it's in their best interest to quell this before they have another war on their hands. So by the week's end, two companies from the MidGuard, a rifle and a support company will be deploying to Wutai to deal with what's going on there. That's a total of about 350 troops, which is leaving the MidGuard severely undermanned." Claire felt a spark of fear inside of her, sensing what the officer was about to say. "...and because Shinra is looking at making this a posting for these 350 troops, that means they won't be coming back to fill the ranks in Midgar. Which means that for anyone who wasn't originally posted to Midgar...you've now been posted to B Company, 1st Battalion of the MidGuard." Claire's world shattered before he even finished his sentence. "I know it sucks, especially because we're one day away from getting posted to our units but this is totally out of our hands." Claire began to panic, she did not want to get posted to Midgar. But what could she do now?

"Sir!" Claire shot her hand up, interrupting him in mid-sentence.

"Um, yes?"

"Is it still possible to get kicked off course?" She asked quickly and completely seriously. Almost everyone turned to look at her, not sure if they had heard right. The lieutenant blinked and gave a deep frown.

"Uh..."

"Farron sit down and shut the fuck up," The course warrant growled as he stepped in, "You're not intentionally getting yourself kicked off course to get out of a posting." He told her quite straightforward. Claire swallowed hard and sat back down, not sure how to handle the situation. She had just put herself through the hardest part of battleschool with a horribly painful injury in the belief that she would be able to go home once it was all over. But now that it turned out to be nothing more than a big tease, she felt like she had never wasted more time and effort on anything in her whole life.


Oh snap. Drop me a review. Ps, if the part with the exploding smoke grenade and burning liquid chemical stuff seems outrageous...its not. I've seen it happen to someone in the same way.