Lesson.1.1
With a snap, something ripped on the side of her. The pressure gave way, twisting in to a burning pain. She pulled away, instinctively breaking free, escaping.
Cid landed a hit. As if she need add any more salt to the gaping, open, flesh wound; she would be loathsome to admit he was able to strike her within seconds of initializing their battle, all the more irritating while he was perfectly immobile. The slice in her arm, clean and precise, wept its protest in blood, her fingers curling tightly around the assaulted bicep. Red cascaded its publication past the cracks between each finger, snaking between and around every dip and curve on her thin hand.
"Damn." Lightning said with a rushed exhale, mentally corralling the tattered remnants of her pride and tucking them away.
It was obvious he was baiting her and patiently waiting for her to wear herself out. Only then would he make his move and strike; cheap way to fight for a Brigadier General. Nonetheless it wouldn't be hard to wear out after two days of fighting. Lightning was going to have to act regardless of his strategy. Two days of straight fighting would be taking its toll on her body once the effect of the cold shower wore away.
Seems like that, she thought precariously, glaring at life's liquid tumbling from her arm, might already be happening.
Refocusing on his statuesque form, Lightning replaced her hand on her weapon. The metal was cold, inflexible to the touch. She could have mistaken the imitation for something physical, genuine; if it hadn't have been for the sharply cut corners lacking their edge, she might have. Of all the models she had been given to use for practice, not one of those lacked an edge that possessed the ability to lacerate. Budget cuts could be at the root of blame for this problem as well. Any imperfect weapons went in to storage for classroom use with little to no cost to the Academy. Personally, she preferred the scoring edges of inadequacy, but the blade that lie in her hand now, seamless and unmarred, teemed with her inner objective. It suited all the she was striving for.
Thoughts crammed aside, the cadet narrowed her eyes, readied her weapon and stormed her opponent. Cid raised his hand, eloquently almost, as Lightning struck with the speed and fury that her name pledged her to claim. She flipped backward at the sound of clashing sabers, dodging any swipe he may throw her way. She realized she couldn't tell; it was difficult to read him. His movement was close to none as he stood in one place and waited for her onslaught.
In opposition to her previous thoughts and beliefs, Lightning looked up in time to find Raines running at her, his own weapon poised at his side.
There was no time to dart or dodge the movement with a skip to the flank; instead she raised her gun-blade, the weapons sparking between them as they met in a hard hit. She was pushed back by his strength, her feet caving underneath her, compensating balance on her back as she landed with a stiff thud, dirt kicking up around her. Cid followed her suit, tumbling to the ground on top of her; his force relying on her inability to keep her legs stable.
"Lightning." He ground out, as if in both of testing her name on his tongue and of reprimanding her stalwart persistence to fight.
Loathing the way his golden eyes skimmed over her, like she was something broken, she straightened on the floor, inadvertently jarring her tender arm beneath the force of the blades and the rough terrain at her back. A cry slithered out her lips.
She could cope with anger, preferred it even. Let him be fuming. His solicitous pity she could do without.
He didn't miss the sound, and his pity-laced eyes deepened further in their succor.
Brows plunging in blatant annoyance, Lightning pressed him back with her saber as hard as she could, throwing him off to take advantage of his distracted sight for as long as was possible. She'd be damned if he pitied her. Kicking his legs, she forced him to fall to his knees before bounding and proceeding to shoot at him. Three bullets missed their mark; one tore through the flesh of his shoulder.
A seething gasp left his mouth. But to his credit, he pushed past the pain, regained his equanimity and straightened his posture before she had a chance to unleash another assault on his body. The previous one already had him twitching against the superficial wounds. He was just lucky the bullets missed his head.
Lightning refused to pause for even a second. His face twisted in to a grimace as he noticed she was repositioning for another onslaught.
Her movements were progressively sluggish, though. She knew her body couldn't take much more abuse before collapsing from sheer exhaustion. The legs hauling her weight were wobbly at best, her arm struggling to lift the blade, her hand constantly loosening and re-tightening to keep its grip. Sweat trickled from her brow, exertion locating itself in each crease on her countenance, every joint in her body. Her mouth opened wider to gasp larger intakes of breath as she was losing her energy, her tenacity. The conflict with fatigue looked much harder than the one occurring before them.
Tossing the weapon up, Lightning caught the cutting edge in her hand, swinging the solid hilt in the direction of his head and releasing the hold on her weapon. Fortuitously, for him, her actions were slow, permitting him to circumvent the certain concussion of the soaring bludgeon by a thread.
Lightning sailed passed his body while he dodged her speeding blade, arm extended as she gained momentum before she tucked and rolled, sliding to a clear halt as she caught the weapon. Frustration filled her thoughts as she turned back around to find him standing as still as a statue; his face as inanimate as he, himself.
Why hasn't this ended yet? She needed a kill. And fast.
Pins and needles had taken up residence in her fingers and hands by now; a sensation known as paresthesia. Not that anyone, save herself, knew it by that term. No, if she had been asked to explain it to any other soldier, she would simply say 'my hands are falling asleep'. Not that she talked to any of those bone-heads anyway. Nonetheless, she knew her body was giving her an ultimatum; telling her that she needed to let emotions sub-side and bring clear, rapid thinking to the forefront of her mind.
She clenched and unclenched her fist. Her hand was aching with the pain of gashing her palm from her previous move. Surely, grabbing the blade wasn't the smartest, but had the hilt contacted with the General's head all would have been worth it. It was really too bad that she'd missed.
Cid broke the silence "If you feel the need to end this at any given moment: Just yell for them to stop."
"You'd like that wouldn't you?" she bit out the words in her fury, each dripping with the malice she felt.
"That's not what I-"
"Time to end this!"
Bronze eyes widened at the sudden burst of energy the girl seemed to acquire as she darted across the field to his position. In response, he jumped in to the air narrowly escaping the blitz of her saber. What he wasn't expecting was for her to follow.
Launching in to the air after him, Lightning clanged her blade against his, retracting the weapon as quick as she hit before ultimately attacking again. It was with no practiced ease that she kept swinging at him or that he kept blocking her assault with the saber of his own. He felt his own brow lining with sweat as she continued batting at him.
Falling to the ground, she took no time in meeting his blade once again with her own, chancing for an opening; any opening.
A tirade of slashes flew in his direction, each one missing its intended mark or bouncing off the reciprocated dodge of his own weapon; metal clashing angrily against metal.
The counterfeit yet somehow genuine blade in her hand seemed to represent each and every individual emotion she felt. Scorching odium pierced through the sharp tip, aiming for the kill when Cid would block the move. It was as though her weapon and body were one entity.
Cid grunted from the sheer power of her impacts, falling back a couple of inches. He slammed forward, forcing her to jump back and re-load another barrage of attacks.
Lightning repositioned her blade. Cid repositioned his.
Two shots discharged.
Both remained fixed, quiet. The air of the simulation had made it quiet before, but this quiet…it was dead silence. No scuffling of feet or clashing of weapons could be heard. Lightning froze in her stance, Cid in his.
In the replicated breeze, the false scene that was a desolate landscape: the two felt completely alone.
Suddenly, the scene flickered and died, revealing, once more, the pristine white of the training hall. With that notion, life caught up.
IIIIIII
His weapon dematerialized in to thin air, his cape falling around his body loosely when he chanced to stand straight. He looked to his aching shoulder, the scar healed, blood wiped clean from the fabrics. Prior experience told him the ache would not fade for at least a week. Prior experience told him neither would Farron's.
Absently rubbing the tender area, Cid noted the medics approaching his position. He hoped they would get to Farron first, he saw her take the bullet to her upper left arm. She had to be feeling a profuse amount of pain at moment's notice even if, in reality, her bone was nothing if able-bodied. He imagined his injury fared much better than hers; her bullet had barely scraped his already damaged shoulder, while, in comparison, his bullet hadn't missed its mark. No doubt it felt as though it shattered her entire Humerus. Cid never aimed to kill; a soft spot he wouldn't fully admit to possessing.
"Don't touch me!" the voice brought him back to his surroundings, thoughts forsaken to the woman currently smacking away a medic and charging toward him. "The simulation may be over, but this fight's far from finished!"
IIIIIII
She cursed urgently, pain ringing through her arm as though someone were taking a long screw and drilling it through that one spot; as if the bullet had gotten stuck on replay and continued tearing through her flesh at high speeds; shattering bone.
Lightning barely noticed the simulated world vanishing around her. The last of its fragments lay in the sword still clutched tightly in her hand. When she finally realized her weapon wasn't real, she grasped helplessly at it as it started fading, her last chance of winning disappearing in to thin air.
She growled as the audience came back in to view, as the simulated life she came to recognize was replaced by the very physical, very demanding reality of life. Cid's wounds, she noted angrily, dissolved with them. But then, hers did just the same.
No longer was there a wound under her numb hand; no shattered bone in her left arm, no scar on her right. All that remained was pain; copious amounts of agonizing pain. This kind of pain was enough to send a full-grown man in to shock. But not Lightning. She wouldn't allow her body to cushion the blow; she wouldn't give it the satisfaction of controlling her. Rather…she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing it.
Her lips thinned in to a firm line as she watched a medical personnel run towards her. The man came upon her, an arm reaching for her shoulder.
A smack resounded through the hall as she swatted the nurse's hand away.
"Don't touch me!" The ice shooting through her eyes made the man shiver in response and stand away. He had no desire to argue, especially when Lightning was making a face that told the nurse that this particular soldier would rip his arm off the next time he tried. Suddenly her attention diverted from the medical staff to Cid, her eyes gleaming with an angry fire. And he knew. "The simulation may be over, but this fight's far from finished!"
The thunderous roar of the spectators carried in volume and momentum as she charged. Lightning made no delay in moving in and punching Cid's side, but he easily blocked the move only serving to increase her blind fury. She stepped away to pop him in the face and was, again, outmaneuvered. Her fist broke contact with his palm as quickly as they had connected, exhaling hard whenever she touched him as though his skin was a boiling layer of acid rather than human flesh.
It was obvious Lightning had finally snapped of her reasoning. All of her collective frustrations having finally burst forth from her body, pelting him with the stones of her determination to succeed. Quite clearly, she wanted to see Cid on his knees, broken and injured.
Adrenaline pumped through her blood, numbing the effects of the pain corroding at the inside of her arm. She panted heavily, her knuckles white and bloodless where they clenched. Several strands of hair hung in her face. The light pieces of hair fluttered with her every exhalation.
She swung at him wildly without planting her feet or putting her body in to it. What little energy she had left was spent screaming and yelling when she should have been focusing on inflicting the utmost damage. Her attacks hit with the heat of anger, but backed up by the poor excuse of already spent strength they did nothing to threaten Cid.
Fist after fist, she tossed back and retried. Lightning's resolve wouldn't fade, her legs danced perilously, reflexed, soared and stooped with the jerking movements of her arms. She came very close to landing a hit; and in one fell swoop it all ended.
As she twisted to kick Cid, with any luck in the general area of his pretty face, a great weight struck her in the back. Lightning was unable to cry her surprise as she hit the ground with bone-jarring force, her head going light with the impact, her eyes losing recognition of the world around her. Sputtering, the cold floor filled her mouth, eating up her vision.
Then she noted there were hands. On her, over her; hands clasping her own hands in restraint against her limp back, hauling her from the tangled fray of momentary unconsciousness and back to the current situation. She blinked past the black, surfaced through the gray and broke in to a foggy-hued veracity.
Voices clamored around her, congesting the air and adding to the vivacious sting in her head. She winced and tried to tell them all to just: shut up. But her mouth was suffocated by marble.
Lightning shook her head, twisted her neck and winced at the pain slowly resurfacing. Due to her now cognizant mind, her less than pleasant arm's position was beginning to give way to ripping agony.
"Get. Off." She demanded, emphasizing the word "off" by thrashing her shoulders back at him.
"Farron" Cid loomed above her, the sound of her name a livid bite on his tongue.
She yanked her arm sharply, agony hissing past her teeth. She fought it, swallowed down the pain, the bile that rose up in her throat as she fought to remind her and her body that her arm was not broken.
"Stop struggling." He ground out, grabbing her shoulders, holding her secure under him. He steeled above her, utterly motionless. "You're only hurting yourself."
Voicing her discontent in a snarl, Lightning bit out what was left of her ebbing energy before deciding it would only benefit her if she were to obey; despite greatly not wanting to. With a sigh, she shifted her body so that her right arm would receive the brunt of the weight. "I won't move as long as you get off me, Raines."
His eyebrows rose "So if I get off…you won't move?"
"Yes…" she rolled her eyes and couldn't refrain from tacking on "Thank you for regurgitating what I already said."
He removed from her very slowly, obviously doubtful of her word. She admitted, he had reason to be cynical, but she couldn't help the stitch of indignation weave its way in to her skin, making her bitter about his misgiving. After giving her word, she never fell back on it. But then, Cid didn't know her. Nobody did.
Standing erect, Cid heaved a sigh, waiting for Lightning to make a move; alas she did no such thing. She kept as solid as a rock, as frozen as ice. Her word preserved. He respected as much.
"Help her up." He commanded, giving stern looks to the medical personnel as they exchanged concerned glances.
"Save it." Lightning snapped, making the decision for the nurses before any could opinionate their displeasure. Cringing as she pressed off the floor, her world fell in a series of hot white flashes of torture stemming from her arm before she was able to crawl to her feet.
Cid impatiently stepped forward. "You need the medical attention, Farron."
"I know best what my body needs…" she stood; crooked and wincing, but she stood.
Bronze eyes tapered, firmly glaring at the soldier practically kneeling before him. Her pride was obviously the most important thing to her at this point and he couldn't understand why. Cid sighed. He could command her to do as she was told, forcing her to take the medical procedures regardless of her protests. But he couldn't bring himself to speak the demand. It seemed so easy, yet in the face of the young soldier, he was speechless.
Perhaps because he secretly knew medical attention could not cure the depths of her suffering. He saw the hardened ice in her eyes blocking others from seeing something more; deterring them from looking deeper and seeing the truth to her stiff mannerisms and cold calculations; keep others thinking that she didn't need anything or anyone. But he could firmly see she did.
In the irises made of ice, he saw that medical attention would be insignificant to this woman.
She required care in the form of a person.
"In that case…" he spoke finally, Lightning glaring at him in response "…you're discharged from the rest of your obligations. Go home, Farron."
Her eyes lost their frost at the last of his words, widening despite her control. It wasn't hard to see that she was expecting him to 'order' her to receive the medical help. And even though she was slightly piqued at him discharging her, she was in no position to argue, what with one hand on her arm and the rest of her body swaying like a building with its foundation crumbling. Needless to say: she felt like a building with its foundation crumbling.
Losing her vigor, Lightning half-heartedly chest-saluted to her superior before turning and, in spite of her best efforts, teetering back to the locker rooms. The door slammed closed behind her as she collapsed in to a crumpled heap on the tile floors.
Her head crashed against the heavy door in an attempt to redirect the sting, but nothing was working. Try as she might, her labored breathing only increased; her throbbing only intensifying with every halation of life's air. Grinding her teeth against one another, Lightning pounded her fist in to her head, choking at the aching wave that resurfaced images of the bullet piercing her body. Her hand flew around her throat as she leaned forward, retching at the floor.
If her mind was trying to expel the horrifying experience through vomiting, the commitment didn't seem to be making a connection.
Grotesque noises of her dry heaves filled the empty Locker Room and Showers, driving silence out of every crevasse; replacing it by means of her hacking. Her body shook with the exertion, trembling, shaking her to the core while her ears filled with the horrid gargling noises. She was sure they could hear her; positive that everyone in the entire building could hear her. For a minute she worried that someone would happen upon her in her feeble state. As far as she was concerned: no one needed to see that.
A gargling heave ripped itself from deep in her gut, releasing the noise aside some company. Lightning grimaced upon tasting acid, her body expelling it instantaneously.
Tiled, echoing walls fell silent with her on her last retch. Sweat dripped quietly from her brow to the floor as she gasped and leaned her head back against the only thing supporting her. The door, ever strong and ever sustaining only remained as it were. Perhaps that was why she liked inanimate objects much more than the humans that created them. Walls, doors and even weapons: they could not talk. They could support, they could assist and they could listen. Even though the words that were chosen to be spilled bounced right off, they could never go telling anyone else what had been spoken around them.
With humans, it was much more difficult. Souls of humans were easily twisted; corroded by things like power and money. It was difficult to trust someone when they were so effortlessly warped. Besides, trust already never came easily to Lightning. And when it finally did come, the people she trusted seemed to disappear in rapid succession. Perhaps that was why she didn't trust her sister, her own sister, with anything. To put trust in Serah would mean she might lose her. And Lightning would much rather lose Serah due to her inability to open up rather than to death, which was much more terminable.
Was it a lonely existence? Sure. Was it rewarding? Not in the least. The only perks she gained rested in the knowledge that her secrets would never be revealed. Her deepest, darkest emotions and moments never to be shared with anyone except the creations man had made.
Doors, walls, windows and weapons didn't possess ears.
Nor did they possess hearts.
A/N: Wow! Sorry this took so long to produce. I hope I didn't disappoint on any expectations.
Of course Lightning had to lose. It's part of her lessons on growing up (and she lost against him in the game when she attacked him in pure rage…which she has done in my story as well. AND the title of this lesson is "learning how to lose" for goodness sakes, you'd think I'd try to give some element of surprise).
Go straight to Review (or favorite 8D) if you don't wanna read the rest of this note ;D cuz Imma do a bit of explaining here for those curious.
Even though the injury Lightning sustained may seem superfluous, an injury similar to this was able to bring a grown man (big, huge, 6ft5", scary guy: my father) to tears and passing out. I imagined that Lightning's reactions to the wound weren't far off from what it could have been. I didn't want to go too overboard, but I did want to express her pain from both inner torment and superficial wounds. At this point, she's younger, angrier and finding her way to cope with loss. Maybe not the best ways to cope…but we'll give her points for trying :D
On reality news, expect the next post to take just as long (if not longer), because my life is in a busy heap right now and I'm not making much effort to write OR get online at all. xD
If you have any other questions, feel free to drop me a line in a review!
Until next time, when family issues are introduced to the story, I bid you all adieu.