Chapter Twenty:
A/N: Another fight with Johnny and the man in the blue suit occurs, and Tessa shows that she is indeed human in a most unusual way. Also, Adette steps into the foreground of the story to take her place amongst the important twists of the plot. Also, there's some psuedo-yuri at the end of the chapter.
Also, I'm dissatisfied with my summary and am willing to change it if the right one comes along. Just put your idea in your review. (Winner gets a chapter dedicated to him/her!)
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"Here it is," Tessa said fearfully to Xu as she showed her the door to the dead woman's cabin. They'd passed through the observation car in darkness and silence, and Tessa was sure that she was going to fail her exam. "This is where we found her."
"Move," Xu said as she pushed Tessa out of the way and threw open the door. Then she screamed and jumped out of the way as two figures spilled into the dimly lit hallway. Tessa recognized them as the woman's husband, Johnny, and the man that had been eating him.
"What's wrong with them? Xu screamed at Tessa as Johnny grabbed her boot. "What's wrong with them?"
"Hold on," Rinoa yelled as she jumped into the fray. She raised her arm, which didn't have the weapon on it, and a bolt of lightning shot out of it and into Johnny. He stopped moving and fell at Xu's feet. "We don't know what it is."
"Guys, help!" Tessa yelled as the second man stood up and charged at her. With quick reflexes, Tessa grabbed one of his arms and slammed him into the wall beside her. Then she let go and stared at her hands as the man tried to regain his balance. She looked up at the man, a look of bewilderment on her face.
"Tessa!" Rinoa yelled as she tried to walk past a petrified Xu, and Johnny was suddenly moving again. "Just wait for me!"
Tessa didn't say anything, she just stepped back as the man clawed the air where she had just been. Grabbing his arm again, she pulled him toward her. She drove her knee into his stomach, but it seemed to have no effect.
Dodging his gnashing teeth, Tessa drove her elbow into the side of the man's head, knocking him back a decimetre. She then raised her hands, which were balled into fists, in front of her face. The man lumbered toward her, and she lashed out with a right hook that met with his chin. Again, he didn't even flinch at the attack.
"Tessa!" Rinoa yelled though neither woman could see the other any longer. "Are you okay!"
"Fine!" Tessa replied as she kicked the man in chest. She heard the cracking of bones as he stumbled back but didn't fall. "But I can't get him to stop!"
"Just hold on a little longer!" Rinoa yelled back. "We're just having a little trouble of our own."
Tessa backed up a bit more, and then felt her back hit something solid, a door. She didn't have enough room between herself and the advancing man to get the door open without risk of him catching her, so she flung her arms out to her sides, looking for an escape route. There were none, but she felt glass on her left.
A window! she thought, a plan formulating in her head. I just hope it's not shatter resistant.
The man was a decimetre away when Tessa reached out and tried to grab the side of his head but missed. He bit her hand, but she kicked him away, glad he hadn't broken through the tough hide of her fighting glove. She then drove her elbow into the window, thankful to hear the shattering of the glass.
"Tessa?" Rinoa yelled, clearly scared.
Too preoccupied to reply, Tessa withdrew her elbow and kicked the man on his left side with her right foot. He hit the wall and she jumped behind him. She grabbed his head and slammed it into the wall before thrusting it through the glass. Shards bit into her fingers, but Tessa gritted her teeth.
She shoved his neck down onto a large shard of glass that was trapped in the windowpane. She withdrew her hands and backed into the wall behind her. Thankful for the train's large windows, Tessa steadied her weight on her right foot and placed her palms against the wall behind her.
With her left foot planted on his ass, Tessa grunted as she lifted the man. It was hard, since he was heavy and struggling. Then, with a quick flash of thought, Tessa threw her left hand out. A white, swirling wind left her palm and lifted the man to Tessa's eye level. As quickly as she could, she grabbed his foot and shoved him through the window. As soon as she removed her hand, the man fell away with the speed of the train and Tessa didn't even hear him fall.
"Are you guys okay?" Tessa yelled, exhausted.
"Yeah!" Rinoa yelled back, breathing hard but laughing. Feeling her way along the wall, Tessa saw that Rinoa and Xu were both bent over and panting, and that the door to the cabin was again closed.
"We got him back inside the cabin," Xu said. "What about you?"
"I shoved my guy out a window with a Float spell," Tessa said with a laugh. She cringed a second later, though, as she heard scratching on the other side of the door.
"Are you hurt?" Rinoa asked, ignoring the scratching sounds.
"Not really," Tessa said. "I just cut myself on some glass is all. What about you?"
"He tried to bite me," Xu panted as she stood up. "I hit him in the face before he could, though. I don't think we got anything other than bruises, though."
"Still," Tessa said as she offered Rinoa a hand. "We should go back so I can check us out."
"What do you think happened?" Rinoa asked as she took Tessa's hand.
"I've never seen it before," Tessa grunted. She pulled and Rinoa stood up, swaying. "But I want to look at the body back in the cabin. It might tell us something."
---
"What happened to you guys?" Zell asked as the three women walked into the cabin. Xu collapsed on the sofa, too tired to care about the blood on it.
'We got into a fight," Rinoa said as she rubbed her forehead. She slapped Tessa on the back as the redhead walked around her. "Xu and I stalemated this guy, but Tessa beat the crap out of hers."
"Don't," Tessa pleaded as she stepped over the body. She grabbed her pack and sat beside Xu on the sofa. "I don't have the time or energy to tell any fucking stories."
"Who did you guys fight?" Phelan asked. He was sitting on the edge of his bunk, looking excited. "Was it a couple of Galbadian soldiers."
"The Garden and Galbadia, while not on the best of terms, signed a ceasefire after the Sorceress War ended," Xu yelled angrily at Phelan. "We just fought a couple of nut jobs."
"Incredibly strong nut jobs," Rinoa corrected. "I even hit the guy with a Thundara spell, but all it did was stun him long enough for Xu and I to throw him into another room."
"Excuse me," Tessa said as she bandaged her fingers. The cuts were superficial, but she didn't want any risks. "Does anyone know where Adette is?"
"She went to the SeeD cabin," Zell said. "She looked freaked out, and I told her to get some rest there."
"I'll look at the body later," Tessa told Xu. "I'm going to go see if she's okay."
"Why the fuck should I care?" Xu grumbled. "It's not like you're going to do anything I say, anyway."
"Glad you understand," Tessa said as she slapped Xu on the knee.
"Antessence," Xu said as Tessa opened the door. "Why didn't you panic during the fight back there? Like you said, you're a medic, not a fighter. How is it you killed your guy while Rinoa and I, two proven fighters, couldn't even knock ours unconscious?"
Tessa exhaled loudly and looked into the hallway. "I've fought these things before."
---
After saying that she couldn't elaborate due to a gag order, Tessa left the student cabin and walked to the SeeD cabin right next to it. Inside she found Adette sitting in the middle of the floor, the gun she'd used to kill the woman in her hands.
"Hey," Tessa said while knocking on the open door. "Mind if I join you?"
Adette looked at the gun for several seconds before looking up at Tessa. "She was going to kill you, you know."
"I know," Tessa said with a sigh. She walked over to Adette and sat beside her. "It's okay, you know."
"What's okay? That I killed a person?" Adette said. She raised her hands, the gun in her left one, and hit herself in the head. "That's okay?"
"Hey, you're on your SeeD exam," Tessa reminded her. "You're a Firearms major, a sharpshooter. You're going to be hired to kill people."
"And?" Adette asked as she drug the short barrel of the gun on the floor.
"And it's okay to be scared," Tessa said as she put an arm around Adette's shoulders. "I'm a Medical Major, and I just killed a man today. At least, I think it was a man…"
"What?" Adette said as she looked up at Tessa.
"Nothing," Tessa said quickly. "I just want you to know that it's perfectly normal to wonder what you're doing after your first kill."
"Things are different for you, though," Adette objected. "You're a medic. You're supposed to help people. My purpose is to kill them."
"And that's why what I did is so much worse," Tessa explained. "I'm supposed to help people, like you said. Yet, I've killed people."
"You killed someone?" Adette asked. She looked up at Tessa with a sad curiousness in her eyes. "When?"
"Just tonight, remember?" Tessa said. She flinched at the thought of the man in the blue suit trying to bite into her as though she were an appetizer. "I pushed a man out of a window so that he wouldn't kill me. I did it to save myself, and you did the exact same thing."
"No I didn't," Adette said as she shook her head. Her long hair fell into her face, but she ignored it. "I wasn't in any danger, I didn't save myself."
"That's not what I meant," Tessa said, trying to clarify her statement. "Phelan and I were being attacked by a woman that wasn't bothered by being set on fire. You fought to save us."
"That doesn't change the fact that I killed someone," Adette said as she threw the gun in her hand across the room. "I took away someone's daughter, maybe even a mother."
"It may not be much consolation," Tessa said as she used her fingers to brush Adette's hair out of her eyes, "but you'll get used to it. If you find you can't, then you can still become something else. The world always needs more doctors."
Adette didn't laugh at Tessa's joke, but she did say something. "Do you really think that woman would've killed you if I hadn't stopped her?"
"Yeah," Tessa said reassuringly. She found it odd, the fact that she was comforting someone. Usually, she was the reason people felt bad. "I do."
"Then I guess it was worth it," Adette said soberly. She laid her head on Tessa's shoulder and sighed. The two women continued to sit like that for a long time, long after Tessa thought she should've been back in the student cabin.