"Is it me, or do all these houses look the same?" Fang asked, scratching the back of her head. She had parked the car randomly in front of one of the houses that lined the circular court, and she and Vanille now strolled down the sidewalk eyeing each huge manor.
"You probably should've written down the address," Vanille said, staring up to gawk at one particular house that resembled a castle from a book she had once read.
"Yeah, yeah…" Fang mumbled. She slowed her steps to a halt and lightly touched Vanille's arm, looking up towards the sky. "Do you hear that?"
Vanille stopped as well and tilted her head so that her ear stuck upwards in the air. "Sounds like music."
"Yep." Fang grinned. "And not just any music. It's that shitty poptronic stuff they play on the radio all the time. My guess is it's gotta be from someone our age." Fang began taking long strides down the sidewalk, following her ears to the source of the sounds.
"I don't know, Fang. Lightning doesn't seem like the type of person to listen to that kind of stuff," Vanille said, skipping to catch up to her best friend.
"Well, if it ain't her, then it's probably someone who can at least point us in the right direction." Fang stopped and pointed to a huge, white brick house. "Sounds like it's coming from behind this one."
It was undeniable that the music was blaring from the house's backyard. Jutting from the side of the home, and seemingly enclosing the entire yard hidden behind said home, was a tall, black gate with wide bars. Luckily for them, the entrance to the gate just so happened to be unlocked and slightly ajar. Vanille scanned over the unlatched gate hesitantly. "Fang, Snow said that Lightning had a fence that you couldn't see through… This definitely isn't her house."
Fang paused at the entrance to turn and give Vanille an impatient look. "We've gotta ask somebody where she lives, and I'm not callin' Snow. He'll just tell Lightning we're lost, and there'll be no bloody living with her after that."
"But this doesn't look like the type of neighborhood that'd take kindly to the two of us just waltzing in their yard! This is how most scary movies and cop shows begin!" Vanille argued.
"Don't forget pornos," Fang added with a wink.
"Faaaaaang…" Vanille whined, but Fang had already slipped in through the entrance of the gate and was heading to the back of the yard. Vanille gave an exasperated sigh and took off to catch up with her.
The music grew louder as the two walked along the side of the house and further into the yard until they reached the back. Fang's attention first shot over to a table near the back door of the house where a black boom box blasted the music. She then turned and shielded her eyes to block the glare coming from the huge pool in the middle of the yard. A young woman wearing a pink bikini and a big pair of sunglasses lazily floated around the center of the pool on an inflated mattress. Fang could feel her hopes and dreams slowly start to fizzle, like someone pissing on a small fire, as she slowly began to recognize who the blonde-haired, thin-nosed girl was. "Shit," she mumbled as Vanille stepped up beside her. "Beginning of most horror movies, you said?"
The young woman lounging in the pool lifted her head from her flotation device and pulled her shades down her nose. "Oh. Em. Gee. What are YOU doing here? You're not the new cook that mommy hired, are you?"
"I should be on my knees thanking Lady Luck right now that I'm not, Alysse," Fang replied smartly, putting her hands on her hips.
"Alyssa," the girl corrected, laying her head back down and pushing her sunglasses back up. "And if you're not here to cook or clean, can you do me a favor and get out of my yard so I don't have to get up to call the GC? Appreciate it, hon."
"Gladly. But first, would you be able to tell me which house is the Farrons'? I kinda forgot the address…" Fang rubbed the back of her neck as she asked the question. It was bad enough that she had strutted straight into this girl's backyard, of all people, but it was even more embarrassing that she had to ask a favor while she was there.
"The Farrons' house?" Alyssa's head popped up once again. "Why are you going to Lightning's house?"
"Is it really any of your business?" Fang asked, crossing her arms and wagging her head tauntingly as she said it.
"Do you really want to know where she lives?" Alyssa returned in the same manner, mocking her.
Fang growled and glared across the pool at the other girl. "We're supposed to hang out today."
"Oh, reall—"
"You're not invited."
Alyssa glowered at the Pulsian for a brief moment before once again lying her head back down. "She lives two houses over."
Fang turned her head to look both ways through the gate surrounding the yard she stood in. "In which direction?"
"I don't know. You're a smart girl. Or well, there are only two choices. You're bound to figure it out some time before the day ends."
Fang mumbled a Pulsian swear word at the girl before looking at Vanille and nodding her head back towards the direction they came from.
"Tell Lightning I said hi!" Alyssa called after them as they left.
"Not likely!" Fang sang back as she and Vanille continued to make their way off of her property.
It didn't take much longer to find Lightning's house afterwards. Of the houses that were two to three doors down from Alyssa's, only one had a heavy-duty fence that looked like it'd be a total bitch to scale. Vanille led the way up the path on the front lawn and hopped up the steps to ring the doorbell. As if she had been standing behind the it waiting for them the whole time, the door immediately flung open to reveal a slightly peeved Lightning. "You're late."
"We were trying to be fashionable," Fang stated.
"And Fang couldn't find the house," Vanille quickly blurted before hurrying through the door past Lightning.
Fang bored angry holes into the back of Vanille's head as she ran in to hug Snow and Hope. Meanwhile, Lightning leaned against the door and hiked an amused eyebrow in Fang's direction. "Couldn't find the house, huh? I thought it was all up here." She tapped the side of her head in the same manner that Fang had done yesterday.
"Coulda' been avoided if you'da just given me your number," Fang replied smoothly with a light smile.
"Surreeee." Lightning stood up straight again and opened the door further for Fang to enter.
Fang's smile stayed on her face as she slowly swaggered past Lightning and into the house. "Alrighty, ladies and gents! Where shall we begin?"
"I thought you were the one with the plan," Lightning said as she closed the door.
"I am. I was just tryna be polite, it not being my house and all," Fang reassured. "Ya know, no one likes a bossy pants. Or well, some people do." Fang turned to Lightning and winked.
Lightning scoffed and turned to the younger Pulsian. "Vanille?"
"We figured that the best way to start things off was to find out what everyone can do," the redhead said with a peppy smile from her seat on the sofa between Snow and Hope.
"Come again?" Lightning asked, crossing her arms.
"Well, we all seem to have different specialties. Or, at least Fang and I do."
Lightning still looked at Vanille with a puzzled expression. "So you're saying that I might be able to do more than control the wind?"
"Exactly," Vanille nodded, jumping up from the sofa and hopping to the middle of the room. "For instance, I learned that if I want to, when I touch people, I can make them feel sick… Or if someone's hurt, I can make them feel better. I also noticed that I can play with some of the elements. So if you're anything like me, Lightning, you can probably do more than control the wind. Has anyone else got an idea of what they can do?"
Vanille scanned over the Cocoonians with a look of interest. Each of them seemed to be mulling over their past few days in their heads, trying to think if there were any clues of what they were capable of.
Hope looked around from Snow to Lightning as well. "I, uh, think I may have figured something out too," he finally said sheepishly. "I'm not really sure how to explain it, but I was tutoring this guy on the football team. He had an exam and was really bummed out about it, saying he knew he was going to fail. I tried to cheer him up. I gave him a pat on the back, and I just felt this energy pass through me. Then all of sudden, he just changed. He was all happy and just ran out, talking about how he could do it. I don't know… I think I made him braver or something?"
"Hmmm," Vanille rubbed her chin. "So you have a way of making people feel good."
Snow and Fang snickered and Lightning shot them each a disapproving look. Hope blushed and looked down at his hands. "Don't worry about them. It's something we'll look into," Vanille comforted, disregarding the two laughing teens. "Anyone else?"
Silence.
"Okay, then let's get testing!" Vanille smiled and jumped up with a fist in the air. "Fang and I have some ideas on where to start with everyone."
"So, uh… you sure this is a good idea?" Snow asked nervously. The group had migrated to the backyard with Fang, Lightning, Hope, and Vanille standing closer to the house while Snow stood alone on the opposite side of the yard.
Lightning was leaning forward on a baseball bat while rolling a ball around in one of her hands. Her eyes were glued to Snow, eyeing him as if he were a piece of meat. "Oh, yeaaaah," Vanille assured him. "After the way you handled those officers at the Vestige, Fang and I firmly believe that you have the ability to withstand a lot of force. Kinda like a sentinel of some sort."
"Can we at least use something a little, uh, softer for this test run?" Snow uneasily tugged at the collar of his jacket, trying not to meet Lightning's intense stare.
"Well, silly, if we do that, how will we know if you actually have the ability? We need to be exactly sure!"
"Yeah, silly." Snow slightly cringed on hearing the sinister tone of Lightning's voice as she agreed with Vanille. He finally dared to look her way and was greeted by a slight smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. Despite how demented it looked, Snow swore he had never seen the girl so happy in her life. "It's the only way."
Next to Lightning, Fang stood with her weight shifted to one side and her arms crossed, watching the pinkette out the corner of her eye. She felt a bit bad for Snow right now. She really did. But she'd be totally lying if she said she wasn't enjoying the moment. Not so much for the torture that Snow was being pulled through, but more because she couldn't get enough of Lightning like this. The way she was bent over, leaning against that baseball bat… And the dark, mischievous tone that her voice had taken? Incredibly sexy.
"We don't have anything 'softer' to use." Lightning was still responding to Snow's continuing objections towards their chosen research methods.
"Yes, you do! There's a wiffle ball and bat at the top of the closet in Serah's room!" Snow combated before quickly gasping and shutting his mouth. Lightning's body stiffened and her eyes grew wide in disbelieving shock. "Wait. Now before you get all worked up, I was only in there bec— AUGH!"
Snow doubled over, a knee falling to the ground and one hand wrapping around his stomach while his other hand planted to the grass to keep him from falling over after a baseball had quickly shot forward and struck him in the gut, not too far above his groin region.
"Nice shot," Fang said with a light smirk, stepping closer to the still rigid pink-head.
"I missed," Lightning replied, turning her head slightly to look at Fang with a comic gleam in her eye.
"Heeeyyyy!" Vanille chastised. "You didn't wait til he was ready!"
"Oops." Lightning shrugged.
"Now we have to do it again!"
"What?!" Snow squeaked through a strained voice, his head shooting up.
"So for this test, we'll be able to see who can control the elements, such as ice, wind, fire and other stuff! And with lunch time so close at hand, what better way than by cooking!" Vanille announced, as everyone filled in the kitchen.
"Yeah, you guys. Just come in and help yourselves," Lightning droned sarcastically, the last person to actually walk into her kitchen.
"Sorry bout that," Fang said apologetically, looking over her shoulder with a modest smile. "In our culture, we're used to everything being shared amongst everybody. It's an 'our food is your food' type of deal. You don't mind, do ya?"
Lightning shrugged and released a soft breath. "I guess we've got to figure out what these powers are some way or another. Just please, don't make a mess."
"No problem!" Vanille sang. "And I know just the recipe to use. Willow's famous—"
"Infamous," Fang murmured under her breath to Snow, who quietly snickered to himself.
"—hedge frog chili soup! Y'all do have hedge frog, right?" Vanille looked over to Lightning for confirmation.
"Holy shit! They have everything in here!"
Lightning's head swiveled around to see Fang's upper half already buried in her refrigerator, pulling out ingredients. Vanille happily accepted them and laid them out across the island of the kitchen before dividing them into groups.
"So here's how it'll go. Snow, you'll try cooking the veggies. Hope, you'll try cooking the meat. And Lightning will cook the base soup part. Try using fire to cook the food, wind to stir, and we'll use ice to freeze it afterwards for a later day. Got it?" Vanille looked over each person's faces for questions.
"So I take it that means you all plan on leaving with a doggy bag," Lightning mused, folding her arms across her chest.
"Don't be like that, Lightosphere," Fang said lightheartedly. "The inside of your fridge is like Narnia. Y'all won't miss it. And ya definitely won't miss the shits that come with it."
"What?" Lightning's head shot in Vanille's direction, her expression asking whether or not Fang was joking.
"Don't pay her any mind," Vanille said, waving Fang off. "She's just upset because she can't do any of the elemental stuff. We tried."
Fang made a face and stuck her tongue out at Vanille before taking a seat at the kitchen table to watch the others. Vanille first ushered the rest of the group over to the sink, where she made motions with her hands, playing with the moisture in the air enough to form a sphere of water in front of her that she used to wash her hands with. She then instructed the others to do the same.
Hope easily called forth enough water to wash his hands, face, arms, and legs in. Snow was able to summon water forth just as quickly and with just as much ease, but it just didn't seem as if he had as much power for it as Hope did, only being able to summon up barely enough for his hands. Lightning, on the other hand, struggled.
Vanille stood behind Lightning and lifted on her toes to peek over the girl's shoulder and into the sink. "Are you sure you're focusing on conjuring water? You have to want it to be there. Oooh! Have you tried thinking of peeing?"
Lightning grit her teeth as her hands continued to move around in circles in the air to no avail. "No, I haven't."
"How about this?" Snow asked before clearing his throat and leaning close to her ear. "Waterwaterwaterwaterwaterwat erwater-glurg!"
A heavy stream of water assaulted Snow's face, successfully choking him, as Lightning glared. Her hands were still outstretched in his direction as Fang whistled from the table. Vanille looked down to the floor, which was now soaking wet, similar to Snow. "Well, you definitely have the aptitude."
Fang volunteered to do the mopping while the others continued to cook. Snow was the first finished, for all he had to do was cut and sauté the veggies. After he was done, Vanille made note that he definitely had the ability, albeit it didn't seem as if he had as strong of a hold on it as everyone else. "But once we get enough practice, I'm sure it'll get much stronger."
Truthfully, that was good enough for Snow. He gave Vanille a lopsided grin before taking a seat next to Fang at the table.
Vanille then ventured to the stove where Lightning and Hope were still cooking. "Hope, you're like a prodigy!" she cooed, clasping her hands together.
"Uhh, thanks…" Hope blushed. Out of everyone in the group, he seemed to have the most power and ease with controlling the elements. At the moment, he was effortlessly stirring the hedge frog meat while steadily heating it to cook. Vanille gave his shoulder a congratulatory squeeze before sidestepping over to Lightning.
On looking down at the pinkette's progress she frowned. Just like with the water, it seemed as if Lightning was having trouble getting her powers to work. After seeing the amount and force of the water that she had doused Snow in, there was no doubt in Vanille's mind that she definitely had high potential for the gift. However, for some reason she just couldn't seem to focus on it.
Vanille lightly touched Lightning's shoulder and felt the girl stiffen slightly. "Um," Vanille began, "Maybe you should try clearing your mind. See if that helps."
Lightning didn't say a word but continued to stare at the pot and make motions in the air with her hands. Just as it had been doing before, the fire below the pot flickered on and off at different levels and intensities, never staying present or consistent. "Are you trying?" Vanille asked softly.
"Yes, I'm trying," Lightning growled back, obviously agitated.
"Okay, okay. Well, since we know that you do have the ability, how about you let me take over? We can practice building your power up later."
"No," Lightning ground out, never breaking eye contact with the pot. "I can do it."
Vanille attempted to say something else in hopes to ease the older teen but was interrupted by a somewhat loud buzzing sound from behind them.
"Whoa, ho, ho," Snow boomed. "Fang, why is Tammy Bridges texting you?"
"Aye! Ever heard of privacy? Gimme that."
"Nope!" The exclamation was followed by the sound of chairs squeaking and scraping across the floor. Vanille sighed at the racket going on behind them and looked to Lightning. The girl's jaw had tightened immensely, but she still kept her eyes glued to the pot.
"Geez, no wonder you didn't want me to read this. Talk about risqué… Fang, do me and you need to sit down and have 'the talk'?"
"If the text that ya won't even let me read is as risqué as ya say it is, maybe I should be getting the talk from Tammy instead."
"Ha, from someone who read the text, trust me. Next time you see Tammy, the two of you won't be talking."
Vanille rolled her eyes and looked over her shoulder at the bickering duo. "Can you two cut it out? Lightning's trying to— wahh!"
Vanille jumped back at the sudden burst of heat against her body. The whole pot on Lightning's side of the stove was engulfed in flames. Hope jumped back, wide-eyed at the blazing site as well, before thrusting two hands towards the fire. In a moment, the flames dissipated.
Vanille took a heavy swallow before taking another cautious step to Lightning's side. "G-good job. And the soup should be pretty well cooked once we're done…"
"Just like Willow's," Fang quipped from behind.
After eating, the group found themselves lined up again outside, looking towards the sky. Vanille had given them drills that involved them evoking thunder and creating flashes of lightning in the sky. Fang leaned against the backside of the house, right behind where Lightning and Snow stood, watching them.
"True to yer namesake, eh?" Fang asked with a grin when Lightning was able to cause a white streak to fly across the clear blue sky.
Lightning glanced over her shoulder, a relieved and proud expression on her face for being able to do this one thing so easily. "I guess so. You know, Vanille's been out here doing most of these tests with us, but I haven't seen you do a single thing. What are your powers? Or are you true to your namesake too and give people super rabies when you bite them?"
Fang tilted her head and raised her eyebrows, her grin never disappearing. "So you wanna see what I can do?" She smoothly kicked her foot back against the house to push herself up and sauntered forward so that she was standing between Snow and Light. "Then let me give ya a lil' demo." Her eyes left Lightning and scanned around the yard, landing on a volleyball that was lying idly in the grass. "How attached are you to that ball?" she asked, eyes quickly flicking back to Lightning.
Lightning shrugged. "I could manage without it."
"Good," Fang smirked then faced forward with a determined look in her eye. The intensity of it almost made Lightning shiver. "Vanille!" Fang called, nodding her head in the direction of the ball.
"Gotcha!" Vanille replied, running to the ball and scooping it off the ground.
After receiving a confirmatory nod from the older Pulsian again, Vanille tossed the ball up as high as she could. Fang's head tilted back, her eyes following the ball as it rose to its apex in the air. Then, in one fluent motion, Fang's arm cocked back behind her before quickly flying upward in a throwing motion towards the ball. Lightning hadn't even noticed that the girl's hand had been glowing. A luminous, white sphere shot from Fang's hand and soared through the air until it collided with the volleyball, causing the thing to burst and rain volleyball residue into the yard.
"That was awesome!" Snow cheered, jumping and pumping a fist in the air.
"Impressive," Lightning agreed, still looking in the sky where the ball had been. She lowered her head back down to look at Fang, who still gazed upward as well. She had a somewhat triumphant look on her face. "Is that all you can do?"
"Heh. I always have a few extra tricks up my sleeve," the Pulsian replied, eyes still skyward. In another swift motion, one of her hands reached out beside her to touch Snow's stomach. Snow immediately groaned and bent over, grabbing himself around the waist before falling to the ground in a bent up heap.
"That's for taking my phone, jackass."
"Faaaannnnggggg!" Vanille scolded, rushing over to kneel at the boy's side.
Fang looked behind her to give Vanille an apologetic (with a hint of 'you should've expected it of me') look. Lightning just observed and tried to suppress the 'smiletening' that she knew was apparent on her face. "Very impressive."
The next 'tests' that they had taken involved feats of strength. Vanille would point to something that looked heavy and asked them to try and pick it up. Hope and Vanille didn't have the power for these tests in the slightest. Lightning was able to pick up more of the moderately heavy things, but it was apparent that Snow and Fang were gifted the most in the strength department. Somewhere along the way, the pointing and lifting household furniture test somehow transformed into a competition of strength between Snow and Fang, who first tried arm wrestling before going outside to actually wrestle each other.
Lightning, Hope, and Vanille sat on the back step of the house to watch them. As slim and tiny as Fang was compared to the brawny teenage boy, she seemed to be the stronger of the two and was constantly pinning him. However, one had to give Snow credit where it was due; he never gave up and continued fighting to try and best the girl.
"Is she always like this?" Lightning asked with her chin resting on the palm of her hand. She watched with a look of bored disinterest as Fang and Snow tumbled across the yard, Fang yodeling a loud battle cry the entire time.
"Pretty much," Vanille answered, her eyes following the two as they now rolled back to the side of the yard from whence they had first rolled, Fang's battle cry now turning into a more high pitched yelping as Snow tried putting her into a headlock. "You should've seen her when we were kids. She couldn't keep still. I was always in the fields picking flowers to bring to her sick bed when she got hurt jumping off of cliffs or houses or trees and stuff."
"She used to jump off of cliffs?" Lightning asked, turning to Vanille disbelievingly.
"Oh, it's actually very fun! And after the first few bad landings, she got really good at it."
"UNCLE! UNCLE!" Snow called from the back of the yard. Fang had him pinned to the ground with her legs wrapped around his neck and his arms tangled behind his back.
"Yer aunt and uncle can't help ya now!" Fang laughed maniacally in return.
"No, Fang! It's a Cocoonian term for he gives up!" Vanille called, getting to her feet.
"Oh." Fang loosened the grip around Snow and rolled off of him before standing up and brushing herself off. "Why didn't ya just say that then?"
Snow rubbed at his neck and slowly stood. Today really wasn't his day… "Ahh," he winced, and lightly touched his lip. "Is it busted?" he asked, turning to Fang and pushing his bottom lip forward.
"Ouch… looks like it. Ya got a little scrape on your neck too. Sorry bout that."
"Meh," Snow shrugged it off. "What about you?"
Fang raised her hand to reveal a bright red mark where some of the skin had been scraped off her palm.
"Oh, goody!" Vanille peeped, bouncing over to where Snow and Fang stood. "Now we can see if anyone else has the power to heal! Snow, how about you go first? Try healing Fang."
"Okay," Snow nodded. He took Fang by the wrist and stared at her palm. After a few minutes of waiting and Snow staring at Fang's hand with an expression that made him look constipated, Vanille made him stop.
"It hasn't taken you this long to use an ability all day. I think it might be safe to say you don't have this one," Vanille said, calmly taking Fang's wrist away from Snow, whose face had gone red in straining.
Snow let out a deep breath and nodded while Vanille turned around to Lightning and Hope. "So, Hope, how about you try healing Snow. Lightning, you can try to heal Fang."
Lightning got to her feet and walked over to where Fang and Vanille were standing. Vanille grabbed one of Lightning's hands and placed Fang's on top of it before leaving them to monitor the other two.
Lightning stared down at Fang's open palm in her hand. For a girl who seemed so rough around the edges, she had such a delicate and dainty looking hand with skin that was so smooth and soft. Lightning's brow furrowed and she softly shook her head; that wasn't what she was supposed to be concentrating on. She could now feel the taller girl's eyes traveling up and down her face, studying her changing facial expressions. She couldn't help but become a bit more self-conscious about trying to use her abilities.
After a short moment had passed with no progress, Lightning could feel herself growing frustrated and a deep frown starting to set on her face.
"You're trying too hard."
Lightning's vision shot up to meet the green eyes that had been studying her for the past few moments. "Huh?"
"You're trying too hard," Fang repeated calmly. "Like you're trying to force it. And all it seems to be doing is making it harder for ya. Try relaxing a bit. Just let it flow"
Lightning let out an aggravated breath. "I'm supposed to think about what I want to do but at the same time I'm not supposed to think about it too much?"
"A bit confusing," Fang chuckled softly. "How bout this? Think of something that you're naturally good at. What's it like when you're doing it? How much do ya think about it?"
Lightning shook her head. "I've had to work my ass off at everything I'm good at. There's been no natural advantage."
"That's not true," Fang said in a soft and encouraging voice. "First off, you're naturally smart. I mean, like a whip smart. Whenever Palmer tries to sneak attack ya with one of those thought questions, you don't even bat an eyelash before ya hit him with an answer. I think some of 'em even confuse him sometimes."
Lightning's cheeks involuntarily flushed at the compliment as she remembered a particular time when Mr. Palmer asked for her opinion on a certain health care policy. After she had given her answer, he stared at her blankly for a moment before quickly asking another question, not really having a follow-up. "A lot of that comes from studying," Lightning finally replied.
"If you say so… but not too long ago I walked past the gym while you were doing some training. And some of the drills you did looked like they would give highly trained soldiers a bit of a workout. But not you. You breezed through 'em like it was second nature. Heh, kinda looked more like you were dancing than fighting."
Lightning couldn't deny that one. Fighting and working out did seem to come naturally. It was a hobby that had started when she was a little girl, wanting to grow up to be a PSICOM soldier like her father. It then turned into a coping mechanism after her mother had passed. When she competed, it was like her body and mind would meld into one. Her mind could make snap decisions in less than a second and her body was instantaneously on the same page.
As she thought about the ease at which she could train, a tingling sensation spread through her hand as it emitted a pale, green glow. The bright red scrape on Fang's hand slowly started to dull as the healing process began. She heard Fang make a content humming noise in the back of her throat.
"So you've been watching me work out?" Lightning asked in a low voice, actively avoiding Fang's gaze by staring at the girl's palm instead. "A little bit creepy, don't you think?
"Hey, it was only once," Fang defended playfully, a sheepish smile creeping up on her face. "And I couldn't help but watch." Her eyes dropped down to where her hand rested on Lightning's, and she slowly leaned forward in an attempt to inconspicuously get closer to the other girl. Lightning's heart felt as if it were running the mile and her body grew warm as she felt Fang's breath rustle a few of the stray hairs that framed her face. "Beauty is just another thing that comes naturally to you."
Fang's pointer digit slowly inched up to softly caress the inside of Lightning's hand until it had worked its way around Lightning's pointer finger, softly interlocking the two. Lightning's temperature skyrocketed.
"Ahhhh!"
Fang's hand quickly retracted from Lightning's grasp as the raven-haired girl yanked it back to her own body. It had all happened so fast that Lightning couldn't really comprehend what was going on. She just stared wide-eyed at Fang, who grimaced and cradled her hand to her chest.
"Fang?!" Vanille worriedly called, running to her best friend's side and gingerly pulling at the hand to look at it. "What happened?"
"Ahhh," Fang hissed, clenching her jaw and staring down at her hand. "I think she burned me."
Vanille threw Lightning a displeased look from over her shoulder before turning back to Fang. "Here. Let me see it."
"Ow!"
"Stop being a baby."
Lightning took a short moment to compose herself. She didn't remember thinking of or wanting fire. She just remembered feeling warm, and Fang standing so close, and her stomach getting all bubbly... "I… I didn't really mean to—"
"It's okay, Lightning," Vanille said, looking over her shoulder with a much more pleasant expression than her last one. "We're all still new to this. It's still hard for us to control our powers, and it doesn't help if someone doesn't know when to stop provoking people. Right, Fang?"
Fang grunted in response. She seemed to be brooding, but she eventually sighed and agreed. "Yeah, Lightplug. It's fine. This is why we're here in the first place, right?"
Lightning slowly nodded, not feeling much better about the situation. She was usually so much more in control of… of everything. Now it felt as if her whole body was on the fritz. How was she supposed to be useful at all in any of this if she couldn't even control herself to do simple things that even Snow could control?
"But for future reference…"
Lightning was jarred from her silent reverie by Fang's voice. She looked up to meet those bright green eyes that held more concern in them than anger.
"…next time I call ya hot, don't take me so literally." And of course, the comment was accompanied by a tiny smirk.
Lightning's brows furrowed as she gave Fang an incredulous look that blatantly read, "You're seriously making jokes about this right now?!" Not really wanting to see what type of reply Fang would give to that, Lightning turned her attention to Vanille's hands, which were glowing a much brighter and more vibrant green than hers had been. The redhead closed both of her hands around Fang's injured one and Fang's face immediately relaxed. For some reason, watching this made Lightning feel even worse.
"Snow, I swear to Etro! When you come out, that bathroom better be in the same fucking condition it was in when you got in there!" Lightning yelled through gritted teeth, banging her fist against the door.
"Told ya that chili gives ya the shits," Fang said lightheartedly, reaching towards the ceiling to stretch. "But is there another loo around here or something? I've gotta make a house call myself."
Lightning's head whipped around to give Fang a dark look. "Simmer down there, Sparky," Fang said, pushing her hands down in a calming motion. "My tummy's grown immune to the effects. It's just a number one."
Lightning first eyed Fang warily, but on remembering that she had accidentally burned the girl not too long ago, her face softened. "You can use mine. Up the stairs, make a right, then go straight to get to my room. Bathroom's connected from the inside."
Fang nodded and headed to the stairway.
"And Fang?"
Fang paused at the bottom step and raised her eyebrows questioningly in Lightning's direction.
"Don't touch anything."
Fang feigned a hurt look before continuing up the stairs. "Why does everyone just assume that I touch and grab everywhere I go?"
Fang picked up the first gadget she had seen upon entering the room.
She twirled the slender object between her fingers, not sure what to make of it. Kind of looked like a fancy pen. Ooooh! And it had a button!
Fang clicked the button on bottom of the object, not really knowing what to expect. And truthfully, the thing didn't disappoint. The object split in half, shooting the end without the button forward like a little rocket, straight into a plastic cup filled with real pens and pencils on Lightning's desk. "Oh, shit…" Fang silently gasped, rushing over to the desk to clean up the mess.
Her hands quickly picked at all the writing utensils and paper clips that had spilled out of the cup and across the desk. Maybe she did have a problem with touching. Okay. She had scooped all of the pens and pencils, now all she needed was the rest of the paperclips. She was easily able swipe most of the clips off the bare desk and into a hand below to dump back in the cup. The rest of the paper clips were resting on a small packet of papers lying on the corner of the desk.
Fang carefully picked the packet up and folded it into a curve to pour the remaining clips into the cup. 'Just like new,' she thought to herself with a smile. She went to place the packet back down on the desk when her eyes caught on to the bolded words at the top of the first page.
"Guardian Corps training application?" she softly read the words aloud before scanning over the document and flipping to scan over the next few pages.
She could feel her jaw tightening. It was none of her business what Lightning did in her free time or what Lightning wanted to do with the rest of her life. Or now that they were all in this l'Cie thing together, was it? No, no, no. From the looks of it, it'd be awhile before that application would have to be sent and processed. There was a slight chance that the whole l'Cie ordeal would be over with, for one reason or another, by the time this training program was even supposed to start.
Fang placed the packet back down where she had found it, but couldn't stop herself from digging around the rest of the desk. Lightning was quite the organized individual. Fang hadn't known what she was really looking for, but she was still able to find a checklist and training regimen that the pinkette had written out in order to prepare for the program. Fang gritted her teeth as she read over it before taking a steady breath and rearranging the desk back to the condition it had been in when she had first entered.
She idly rubbed at the black sleeve covering her branded shoulder as she walked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
"Fang and I were able to find a field near the edge of the reservation that would be perfect for practicing our abilities at. It's really out of the way and looks like no one's been there in ages. All it needs is a good grass cutting and it'll be good to go!" Vanille chirped happily, sitting on the edge of the sofa.
"As long as it doesn't have to be my house, I'm content. You guys have done enough damage." Lightning gave Snow an accusatory side-eye with her last comment. But since they were on the subject of bathrooms… Lightning's eyes flitted up to look at the ceiling. Fang had been up there for quite a while.
"So I was thinking of grouping us by our strongest abilities for practice. So for most of the training, I think it'd be easier for me, Hope, and Lightning to practice healing and elements while Snow and Fang do guarding and strength training. And for all the other stuff in between, we can just pair off as we like," Vanille stated.
"Sounds good to me," Hope said, looking to Snow who nodded as well.
"So if I wanted to do strength training, I'd have to find time to practice with either Snow or Fang?" Lightning asked.
"I dunno, neighbor," Snow interjected, rubbing the back of his neck. "Me and Fang are pretty strong. You might get hurt in one of our wrestling matches."
Lightning's eyes narrowed on the boy. She opened her mouth to say something, but was quickly cut off by a voice from the stairwell, "I wanna spar with ya."
Everyone's heads turned to face Fang, who was making her way down the stairs in slow, deliberate steps. "What?" Lightning asked. She had been more focused on trying to build her strength and hadn't even been thinking about fighting technique.
"I've seen you train before. You've got good technique and I wanna practice mine, so I'd like to spar," Fang stated matter-of-factly, coming to a halt and crossing her arms once she had reached the bottom of the stairs. "You wouldn't like a sparring partner?"
"I, uh, yeah," Lightning slowly babbled, giving Fang a curious look. The girl seemed a bit more aggressive than she had earlier in the day.
"Then it's settled. And now that we've done the whole test drive powers thing, what's next with the focus?" Fang looked to Vanille expectantly.
Vanille stared back at Fang through questioning eyes. "Is now a good time to talk about it?" she asked slowly, searching Fang's face for a hint as to what was going on.
"As long as we're sportin' these trendy new brands, then yeah. It's a perfect time, Vanille," Fang returned in a chippy voice. "Any ideas?"
The room was silent at first. Everyone could feel the tension, but no one could really pinpoint what had caused it. Hope looked around timidly before clearing his throat. "I was thinking that maybe we should go back to the Vestige. See if the fal'Cie is still there. Maybe find more answers in the Gran Pulse room."
"I understand the thought process, but I doubt we'll be able to go back into the Vestige after everything that's happened," Lightning said, still chancing a couple of uneasy looks in Fang's direction.
"But didn't your dad basically clean our records? Knowing him, it was a thorough cleanse, so unless the same security guards are working the door, we might be able to get in without anyone really knowing it was us."
"Vanille and Fang definitely won't be able to get in this time," Snow pointed out. "How are we even going to get into the back room without a good pickpocket?"
"Well, y'all do have powers now. You can try something like freezing and breaking the lock," Vanille suggested.
Lightning rubbed her hand over her face. "And if there isn't some new type of alarm system set in place, what happens if we do get in? And what if the fal'Cie is there? Do we just go up and ask him nicely to lift the curse that he was so kind enough to give us in the first place?"
"Ask him like that, and I don't see how he'd be able to refuse," Fang replied in a dry tone from her spot near the staircase.
Lightning shot Fang a peeved look but the girl seemed impassive to it all. "I just think," Hope began, looking desperately around to everyone's faces, "that if this focus is as serious as Fang keeps saying it is, then it's worth a try. What are our other options?"
"Well, looka that," Fang laughed harshly, "Someone finally takes my struggles into consideration. That's refreshing."
"Fang…" Vanille gave the older girl a puzzled look. Fang just shrugged it off. "You know, it is kind of getting late. We should probably start heading back to the reservation. Let me write down my number. Whenever y'all come up with a plan for the Vestige, just let us know. We can't go in with y'all, but if there's some way to help, we'd be glad to do it." Vanille took Snow's phone and punched her number in for him to share with the others while Hope fetched her one of the frozen blocks of chili soup from the kitchen. She then looked in Fang's direction and jerked her head towards the door.
Fang followed suit behind Vanille to the door with Lightning trailing not too far behind them. When the Pulsians had stepped outside, Vanille swiftly turned around to give Lightning a tight hug around the waist. Lightning let out a surprised puff of air, not being able to fully register the quick hug until it was already over. "Thank you for having us, Lightning," she said brightly. "It was fun."
Lightning made a soft grunting sound in agreement. She hadn't really thought about it, but it actually had been fun. Up until the end when Fang had gotten back from her bathroom break, she almost didn't want them to leave. Speaking of… "Fang?"
The tanned girl had already started walking down the pathway to the sidewalk, but stopped and turned halfway around to look at Lightning when her name was called. She didn't speak, but just arched an eyebrow at her. What?
Lightning felt put on the spot. She didn't really know what she had planned to say. All she knew was that something had changed the air between them and that she didn't like it. "I really didn't mean to burn you."
Fang's brows scrunched a bit as she stared at Lightning, scrutinizing her for a quiet moment. She then turned her head away and released a long breath. "And I meant it when I said it was okay. You're… you're a good person, Lighterine; I can tell. Ornery at times, but still a good person. Give Vanille a call and we'll figure out a training schedule, yeah?"
"Yeah," Lightning nodded slowly, not really knowing what Fang was trying to get at but still feeling a little bit more at ease over the whole situation. Fang put on a content face and gave a resolute nod as well. She then turned to continue back down the pathway.
Before Lightning could fully close the door, she heard a loud smacking sound followed by Vanille's voice shouting, "This is why we can't have nice things! I told the matron at the orphanage that I'd be fine if they just let me sleep with a puppy, but no! They bunked me with you instead! And I've been dealing with your little mood swings ever since! What if she doesn't invite us back? Did you see that refrigerator?! Augh!"
Lightning leaned her ear closer to the crack in the door that she had become too curious to close all the way. Vanille's voice was now coming out as muffled shouts with an occasional yelp. "I love you too, Vanille," Fang's voice rolled over the sounds of the redhead in distress.
Lightning softly shook her head before fully closing the door.
A/N: Once again, thank y'all for the feedback! It's really appreciated. And I think someone asked awhile back what kinds of powers Fang/everybody would have...? I didn't want to spill the beans then, but if it wasn't really clear from this chapter, I was trying to stick them with powers related to the three main roles each of them had in the game. Hope y'all enjoy and just a forewarning, I've got a kind of busy rest of February so it might take me longer than usual to get the next chapter up.