Various Information

Lightning found herself letting go of a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as ground stabilized under her feet. She frowned, hearing the relatively crowded military complex break out in murmurs. Murmurs that that would no doubt grow into speculations; speculations which would eventually mature into panic-inducing rumors. Continuing on her way through the building towards the training grounds she found it difficult to ignore the small pang of concern in the back of her mind that said panic-inducing-rumors could actually be more than just rumors.

Her mind then flashed back to the afternoon before when she met with Amodar as he was leaving the Council chamber.

She and Hope had apparently had good timing, the session had just ended and Council members were filing out of the double doors. Lightning didn't catch Amodar when the last of them seemed to have exited. Moving toward the doors, she took a look inside.

The Council chamber wasn't so much large as it was high. The ceiling towered high overhead, crystal so sunlight painted the entire chamber in a diffused light. Crystal pillars lined the walls, smaller crystals of various shapes protruded from them. Were it later in the day—more specifically, after sunset—they would have been emitting a soft glow to keep the chamber illuminated. A long table was set in the center with numerous chairs along either side. Near the very edge of the table stood Amodar examining a datapad.

Just as Lightning and Hope stepped into the chamber the ground seemed to suddenly jerk to the side, throwing them off balance. The initial jolt was followed by a rather strong tremor that caused quite a few of the chairs near the table to slide out of position.

"Councilman!" Hope called as he noticed Amodar grasping the side of the table, attempting to steady himself.

Lightning was already making her way toward him. She was only a few feet away when the shaking seemed to slow to a stop. Hope quickly made his way toward the other two, adjusting a few of the seats along the way.

"Ah, First-Lieutenant, Sergeant-Major!" Amodar greeted them as he adjusted the robe he wore that indicated that he was a member of the Crystal Council.

"Councilman." Hope said with a small bow of his head.

"Amodar." Lightning greeted him, much less formally. Amodar noticed this and gave a small smile, "Are you okay?"

"Yes, thank you," He replied, bringing up a display from a keypad on the edge of the table, "Luckily, that was one of the more tame tremors."

"Tame?" Lightning said, surprised, "That was tame?"

"Well, you've been in Neo Oerba for a while." Hope explained as Amodar pulled up a series of records of the tremors on the holographic screens that appeared above the keypad, "It seems that the closer you are to the base of the Crystal Pillar, the more intense the tremors."

"So the whatever is causing the tremors is under Crystallinus?"

"Not quite." Amodar spoke up, "There have been reports of other areas away from the city that have had tremors that are just as if not more violent than those that occur here in the city." Lightning watched as he brought up a map depicting different areas around Crystallinus. Neo Oerba was shown as relatively safe from recorded tremor-zones. She reached over and brought up the records again and quickly scanned them.

"According to this, 'safe-zones' or not, the tremors are getting worse."

"That's... not entirely impossible." Amodar answered reluctantly.

"And we still have no idea what's causing them."

"No." Amodar replied again, this time with a heavy sigh, "We don't."

As she finally reached the training facility, Lightning checked herself in and started towards one of the training fields. She'd be lying if she said the issues with the tremors didn't concern her. A lot of people had put a lot of effort into building both Crystallinus and Neo Oerba from the ground up. Anything that endangered them, natural or not, was deemed a threat by Lightning. And the pinkette was not keen on taking threats lightly.

"Light!" A voice called from behind her. She recognized the voice as Hope's and looked to see the young man jogging to catch up with her.

"Morning First-Lieutenant." She greeted him, his slightly-annoyed cringe lightening her mood slightly.

"I guess in front of the recruits, ranks are necessary." He stated as the two of them continued down the hall, "Speaking of which, did you get the time to review the list of recruits last night?"

"Well between catching up with some acquaintances and reporting to various officers as per requests I didn't have a lot of time before dinner." Lightning explained, "And after that, I decided to call Serah..." She trailed off.

"So she doesn't come marching to the front gate of HQ demanding to see her older sister?" Hope finished the sentence through a stifled laugh. Lightning shot a grimace his way before shaking her head.

"Well, it was only supposed to be a quick call but it kinda... turned into..."

"A mild family reunion?" Hope again, attempted to complete the sentence. And once again, he received a pained look.

"Anyway, I took a quick look but I figured I'd be meeting them all today anyway." She waved the datapad was carrying, "There's only so much a datapad can tell you about someone." While Hope agreed, he did notice that it seemed rather un-Lightning-like for her to forgo 'studying' up on anything concerning her job.

Lightning hadn't lied. She had called Serah the night before and it had gone on longer than she expected but the issue with the tremors had distracted her much more. She'd even managed to forget about the slightly strange way both Hope and Amodar had talked about the group of recruits she had been asked to train.

"Well that's the situation so far." Amodar stated, shutting down the screens in front of them before turning to face the younger two. He opened his mouth to say something but noticed the bag Lightning had hanging from one shoulder, "Y-Y'know... you could have gone to settle in before coming to see me, Farron..." He motioned towards the bag before throwing a glance at Hope. The younger man just raised his hands up in defense and shook his head as if to say: 'Don't look at me, you try talking her into doing something she doesn't want to.'

'In any case... she kept it over her shoulder while running across the room during a tremor?' He added in his head, finding the thought amusingly mind-boggling.

"Oh, I wanted to know the details of this training assignment." Lightning stated in a matter-of-fact tone, somehow oblivious to the silent exchange between the two men, "I've been called on for urgent work but never involving training."

"The group you'll be training are a... particular group of individuals." Amodar began to explain, handing her the datapad, "I believe you're acquainted with one of them."

"Dajh." Lightning said quietly, seeing his name and picture appear as one of the first on the list, "Particular how?" She asked, quickly skimming the information on the datapad before looking up at Amodar.

"Well to put it simply, out of this year's recruits, these have shown the most potential." The Councilman replied, "The Council have decided to see how effective it is to train them separately."

"And you don't approve?"

"I believe keeping the different groups of recruits as balanced as possible is a better system," Amodar admitted, "but the decision was out of my hands."

"I see." Lightning noted that as much as she wanted the full details, there was a time and place for everything—explaination included.

"You'll be able to see for yourself soon enough." Amodar said with a smile, patting Lightning's shoulder, "In the meantime, I've actually been contacted by a few parties that requested to meet with you—former squad mates and surperior officers and the like."

"Wait... who-?"

"I'll forward their messages to your comm. device," Amodar began to gentle nudge her toward the doorway, "First-Lieutenant, if you would please show the ever-popular Farron to her apartment?"

"But-"

"I've got another meeting to rush to, but we'll catch up a little later." Hope almost laughed at how befuddled Lightning looked as she was basically shooed out of the chamber, "Go on now."

"What... hold on... Amodar-!"

"I swear that man irks me just as much as Snow does..."

"Hmm?" Hope questioned. Lightning silently cursed, not realizing she'd probably said that aloud.

"Nothing, nevermind." She replied quickly as she stepped out onto the training field. They were greeted with the sight of a dozen young men and women in training uniforms either chatting or stretching near the edge of the field. She decided to observe for a moment. She spotted Dajh amongst them, laughing with another recruit. She watched as another young man decided to try and impress the female recruits with a handstand before another decided to knock him over. And as predicted, the two got into a wrestling match whilst the rest began to cheer it on.

"These are the most promising eh?" She stated more than asked, "The recruits with the most potential?" She wasn't really looking for an answer. The increasing jeers from the recruits and the sound of Hope nervously clearing his throat was enough. She resisted the urge to groan as she started towards the group.

A/N:

OMIGAWD! ANOTHER UPDATE!
That makes two!
*dies*

Hmmm... what's that saying...?
Good things come in threes? o_0
*hit by bat*

I had coffee.
...and candy.

...AND WANT MOAR! 0_O