Strike Witches
The
Winged Chronicles
Hate
Beep,beep,beep, a familiar sound. Again, beep,beep,beep, Lynette groggy only sees black, remembering this feeling and like a flash of lightning she remembers what happened to her recently and reaction to this her eyes open like she's trying to wake up from a bad dream. Lynette for a moment stares at the ceiling and she notices that the roof is painted and not made of rock. Lynette hearing a noise near her she slowly raises from her bed with a grunt and some pain and discomfort Lynette focusing on the room she sees all the witches with signs of excitement in the hospital room except Mina, Mio and Griffin. Lynette can hear words of "you gave us a scare and glad to see your ok," but before Lynette could get a word out Yoshika jumps on top of her wrapping her arms around her crying and trying to form the sentence "I was soo scared!" but in her exasperation only a jumble of sounds came from her mouth. Perrine crossing her arms with a humph says "at least attempt to control yourself." Yoshika a little embarrassed lets her arms drop and she slowly backs away. Most of the group starts to laugh as Lynette smiles and notices movement on the right side of the bed, as she turns she sees Lucchini with a pencil poking her right forearm completely immersed in investigating her new metallic hand. Lynette a little embarrassed lifts her arm and she takes her left hand and grasps her right forearm and stares at her hand with with a faint smile and eyes of acceptance and grief.
Lynette coming out of thought looks around the room and with a innocent voice says "wheres everyone else?" Erica throwing her arms around the back of her head and a big smile says "Mina in a anger i've never seen dragged him into her office with Mio." Lynette a little shocked says "`how
come?" Barkhorn in a serious voice says "you've been gone for a week," Lynette shocked replies "how can that be, i thought it was a day or so." Barkhorn shaking her head says " no, we`ve all been worried sick, Griffin never came back to the base, when we arrived you were no where to be seen and we expected that you were ambushed again and we expecting the worst." Lynette feeling guilty turns her eyes away and says "oh," Shirley trying to comfort her says "but your safe, that's all that matters." Erica replying says "try to tell that to Mina", Lynette with a smile says "well, i`m safe and i`m back, Griffin fixed me up." Shirley interested says "talking about fixing up whats with your arm?" Lynette holding her right arm in front of her slowly rotates the hand in a weird manner and with a little shock in her face closes her fist in a awkward manner. "It takes time to adapt to your new hand, training will be required to get you back into fighting condition" says Griffin as he walks into the room. All the girls slightly give him a evil stare as they notice a faint and impression on his face and they dropped the judgement.
Lynette with a voice of relief says "Mina didn't give you too much of a hard time?" Griffin rubbing his cheek says "I wasn't surprised in anything she did, when you feel up to it I will start to train you into how to properly use your new hand." Lynette nods and she slowly gets out of bed and says "I'm ready" with a face of determination. Griffin smiles an crosses his arms and says "very well, the first thing i want you to do is do your daily work around the base and when your ready i'll start the second phase of the training." Lynette a little confused says "ok?" as Griffin walks out of the room.
A week passes as Lynette slowly understands what Griffin meant by doing daily work around the base, simple things as writing paperwork or eating became a challenge. Pencils broke and in the dining room a simple task as holding a fork became a struggle, Lynette grabs a fork with her left hand and places it in her right and without even trying anything her metallic fingers bends the fork in three places and with frustration she looks up at Griffin wondering what shes doing wrong who's eating with wooden chop sticks. Griffin smiles and puts the chop sticks in his left hand and he hold them in front of her and clicks them together at the tips and not even a splinter breaks, with even more frustration continues to focus on her hand and tries again. During this a few of the girls couldn't help but watch and wonder how much strength did Griffin give her in her hand because if she can bend a fork not even trying what can she break if she wanted to this became a sort of entertainment during meal times, they quietly started making bets on how many forks be will break before she finishes her meals, Eila almost never lost.
Another week passes and Lynette slowly learns how to properly use her new hand and at the end of the week she has almost mastered and with out even contentiously knowing it she is using her hand effectively. Griffin noticing this one day at the dining hall yells to Lynette and throws a apple at her. Lynette surprised grabs the apple with her right hand and the apple isn't even bused. Griffin with a smile and a nod says "good, now we can work on the second part of the training." Griffin takes Lynette to the court yard with a case in hand. Most of the girls follow wondering what kind of training Lynette would go through. When they reached a runway with the ocean in front of them Griffin opened the case and pulled out a pistol. A few of the girls confused watch in curiosity as Lynette walked up next to him and Griffin handed her the gun. Lynette grasping the gun in her right hand has no difficulty handling it.
Lynette looks at Griffin and says "whats this for?" Griffin in a more stern voice and face says "this is the next part of your training" as Griffin steps back about five feet and the other girls about thirty feet back Griffin yells "fire" Lynette thinking that this is target practice thinks nothing about it as she angles her body aims with her arm straight out at an angle horizontally to her body at the vast ocean and pulls the trigger. Everyone watches expecting a perfect shot like all ways and with a face of confidence and determination as the gun goes off, the ignition of the gun powder in the bullet as it comes rocketing out of the barrel. The recoil hits Lynette's robotic hand as Lynette feels an excruciating pain originating at her forearm like something took her arm off. As the barrel pulls back the gun falls out of her hand and Lynette with a bone clenching shriek falls to her knees as she grabs her hand with tears falling from her eyes. Lynette's eyes trained on her arm all she can focus on was the horrible pain originating from her forearm, all the girls start to run towards Lynette in her reaction as Griffin walks towards her with his arm held out at them and he says in a slight stern voice "stop" as Griffin kneels on Lynette right side and Lynette not even recognizing him just trying her best t cope with the pain in her forearm as she is grasping her forearm with her left hand as her while right arm is shaking.
Griffin inspecting her forearm sees a slight spot of blood coming from her jacket, Griffin slowly grabs her forearm as Lynette notices him next to her as she faces him trying to hold back her tears, he quickly inspects the arm as he pulls a knife out of his boot and makes a slight rip in her jacket and he tares the entire forearm of the jacket off from her elbow down, drips of blood slowly start to fall the the connection from skin to metal. Griffin holding his hand on her arm creating a healing spell says "the skin,bone,nerves in your forearm are still fresh and need to be toughened up, this is the purpose of this training. I needed you to first master the hand to lessen the impact of this." Lynette with disbelief in her eyes says "can you stop the pain" Griffin nod's and says "only momentary, i can heal the skin but the pain will remain till you body overcomes the shock and can take the impact of the gun, once that your ready to reenter the battle field. I can only help, the rest s up to you." Lynette scared says "it hurts, i don't know if i can go on" Griffin finished with the healing stands up with the girls standing 30 feet away worried for Lynette's well being watch as Griffin stands up and with a stern voice says "Get Up" as Lynette slowly gets back on her feet with her right arm handing off her side. Griffin in the same tone of voice "pick up the gun", shocked Lynette hesitates for a second as she complies with Griffin's orders. During this Barkhorn and Yoshika are getting distressed just seeing Lynette falling to her knees and tears coming from her eyes and Griffin using a healing spell and sternly telling her to get back up.
Griffin in the same tone says "Fire" shocked Lynette just stands there staring at him hoping that he was joking as she stares into his eyes and the only thing staring back are strength and determination. Lynette scared slowly faces the ocean as the girls yell "stop this" as Lynette puts the gun in front of her and she holds it with both hands and with a single tear flowing from her right eye as she closes them and the pulls the trigger. Lynette falls to the ground with the same shriek grasping her arm. Griffin walks over and uses a healing spell and tells her to "get back up and fire again." Barkhorn watching Griffin like a hawk with eyes of killing intent only stands there hoping that this torture will end soon. Every bullet fired is like a shot in Barkorns heart as she gets madder and madder. Time and time again Lynette falls to the ground and Griffin heals her arm, Barkhorn fed up with this yells "stop this torture" as she stares at him with eyes of hate "or i will" as she slowly starts to walk towards Griffin as she lifts up her sleeves of her jacket. Griffin seeing this with a slight flick of his finger a shield pops in front of Barkhorn stopping her in her tracks. Barkhorn now furious, activates her magic and her fists starts to glow as she takes a step back and puts all her force into breaking Griffins shield. A split second before she makes impact another micro shield the size of her fist appears and absorbs most of the impact and right after the shield is destroyed another one appears and as her fist hits his main shield it didn't even make it budge. Barkhorn absolutely in a sense of rage throws punch after punch one after another and time and time again Griffin precisely stops it before she hits his main shield yelling "I'm going to kill you!". After a few minuets Barkhorn is on the ground exhausted and Griffin stands up after healing Lynette's arm says "that's enough today" as Lynette falls over unconscious as he picks her up and walks over to Yoshika and hands her to her and says "she'll be fine after a rest" and Griffin walks around the brick wall and disappears.
Griffin walks into a flower garden looking around and seeing no one with all his might punches the wall shattering it into pieces. With tears coming from his eyes he walks around the corner and activates his flight pack in his lets and flies away. Unknowing to Griffin Mio was in a window watching the entire event and seeing what he did walks away with an emotionless look.