"I can't believe you got stuck going on Mr. Palmer's Vestige trip," Serah chuckled. She was sitting on the island in the kitchen, peeling an orange. "You NEVER act up in school."
"It wasn't my fault," Lightning defended. "Someone in class kept messing with me."
"You always think someone's messing with you." Serah smiled and playfully flicked a piece of orange peel at her sister. Lightning swatted the incoming fruit waste away, the ghost of a smile on her face. It was something that Serah had dubbed, and planned to copyright as, the Smiletning, despite how unclever her sister consistently pointed out the name to be.
"You're Smiletning again," she said in a sing- voice.
"What did I tell you about using that word?" Lightning walked past and snatched the orange out of Serah's hand. She peeled off a slice and tossed it back. "People will think that we made up an imaginary language again. Remember when we were little and we started speaking Spanish in front of Gadot? He made fun of us for a week for having our own 'cotton candy conversations'." Lightning moved her fingers in imaginary quotations as she spoke the alliteration that started her childhood feud with Gadot. It wasn't much later that he and Snow started the cootie scandal that had her marred as a broken woman only at the tender age of nine…
"First of all, Gadot is an idiot," Serah said with a smile. Lightning nodded in agreement, nibbling at the edge of her orange slice. "Second of all, you don't care what people think about you. And last but not least, smiletening is a real word. I'm going to have it erected into the dictionary."
Lightning rolled her eyes and Serah puffed out her chest and cleared her throat before continuing, "Smiletening. Definition: Smiletening is the illusion of a smile made possible by loosening one's expression out of a usual scowl form and in a way performing most of the smile with one's eyes. The one smiletening will appear to be smiling, but when given a closer look, it is realized that the person's lips are straighter than the equator."
"Huh?" Lightning cut in quizzically but was immediately waved off by her sister.
"This act is usually performed by misers, vegetables, and my sister. But it's cute and endearing, nonetheless."
"Why, thank you," Lightning said, bowing her head sarcastically. "That means so much."
"My pleasure," Serah responded with a tight-lipped smile. "But really, considering the field trip, at least you'll have some company."
Lightning stopped nibbling on her orange and furrowed her brow. "Who?" Anyone that her sister considered good company couldn't really be good company. She loved her sister, but many a time she found herself questioning the girl's social judgment.
"Well, Snow and Gadot will be there. Yayyyy for coincidences, right?"
Lightning arched an unexcited eyebrow in response, spurring Serah to continue. "They got hooked into it for sleeping in class. Lebreau will be there. She finally got caught for carving lewd drawings of the teachers into her desk."
"I've sat at that desk once. I learned more during that class period than I ever did in sex ed," Lightning muttered, finishing off her slice of orange.
"And Hope and Vanille willingly signed up to go."
"Hope's going?" Lightning asked. Hope was another boy who lived in Candy Court. He was a bit younger than Serah, and definitely too young to be in high school, but the kid was a genius. Because of that, he was allowed to leave his middle school at midday to take more advanced courses at the high school. "I didn't think history was one of his prescribed courses. And I'm definitely sure Mr. Palmer can't teach it better than someone at the middle school."
"Nah, I think he's only going because he has a crush on Vanille."
"Who's Vanille?" Lightning asked, checking the time. She would have to leave soon.
"One of my friends. You've definitely seen her around. She's a bit of a history buff, but I don't think she gets to talk a lot about it. No one takes her views that seriously and she doesn't like talking about it with her best friend, who she lives with. She says it makes her angry…" Serah's voice trailed off at that last sentence. Her face looked downtrodden, and Lightning could tell that she did feel sorry about her friend who had no one to share her passion with.
"I've… gotta leave," Lightning rested a hand on Serah's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "I'm sure your friend will have lots of people to indulge her at the museum." Lightning nodded resolutely, as if approving her own statement, and started heading for the front door. She never was that good with handling emotions.
"No, they won't," Serah said in a low voice. She could hear Lightning shuffling about in the adjacent room and knew that she probably couldn't hear her. "She's from Pulse."
"Serah!" Lightning called back as she placed one foot out the door, "If Dad stops home and asks where I am, tell him about the field trip to the Vestige. Just don't tell him it's a punishment."
"Okay," Serah shouted back. She heard the door slam shut and hopped off the counter. She threw away the orange remains and headed upstairs to her room. Her mind was clouded with thoughts about not being able to express thoughts and feelings to others, especially to the ones who you want to share them the most with… Sometimes Lightning was as bad as Vanille.
"The exhibit you will be touring is about the evolution of Cocoon technology, with and without the Fal'Cie," Mr. Palmer announced in a monotone voice, holding a Vestige brochure over his head.
"For someone who created an optional field trip and forced all of us to go, he sure doesn't sound like someone who wants to be here," Lebreau murmured out the side of her mouth to Lightning.
Lightning grunted in response. She crossed her arms tighter across her chest, not looking forward to how long this three hour trip would really feel, and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
"We have accomplished many an academic, technological, and social feat here in Cocoon, and it is a lot to be proud of!" Mr. Palmer's eyes rolled sideways to linger unappreciatively at the two girls to his left who were quietly snickering amongst each other. "And something to be respected!" He put a lot of emphasis on the last word, his eyes never leaving the girls.
The taller of the two let out one last chuckle but tried to cover it up to sound as if she were clearing her throat. She then stood straight and rested her hands on her hips, leaning a little to one side. She tilted her head up at Mr. Palmer as if to say, "Go on," while the shorter girl, who had red hair in pig tails and wore clothing much too revealing for a museum, jumped up brightly and clasped her hands in front of her. She nodded her head enthusiastically.
Mr. Palmer watched the two of them warily, not sure whether to find some sort of reprimand or not. Alas, he couldn't punish two of the three students who actually volunteered to go on the trip from free will, so he turned back to the rest of the class and continued.
"I'd respect Cocoon technology soooo much more if it could make more like her," Lebreau breathed, nodding her head towards Fang.
Lightning let out a huff of contempt before eying Fang herself. The raven-haired girl had already lost attention to what Mr. Palmer was saying and was lolling her head around, looking at the ceiling. "Oh yeah," Lightning said sardonically, watching now as Fang's tongue stuck slightly out the side of her mouth and her eyes rolled backwards into her head as she now continued to roll her head around more vigorously in a semicircular motion. "She's a beaut, alright."
The redheaded girl playfully smacked Fang in the stomach. Fang immediately stopped her freakish head roll and gave the girl a wide grin before lightly bumping her with her hip. Lightning even had to admit it was kind of cute.
"Well, I think she's hot," Lebreau whispered.
"Don't you have a boyfriend?" Lightning asked quietly, still studying the two girls in the corner. She wasn't entirely positive, but the garb and jewelry of the redheaded girl led her to believe that she must be a Pulsian too, even if she did not share most of the more famous, text-bookish traits.
"Doesn't mean I can't admire the view. You know, word through the grapevine is that she swings for our team."
"Our team?" Lightning asked. "What is our team? What is even your team?"
"It's kind of like red rover. If I call 'em over and they can't run past me, they're on my team."
"Don't ever say that out loud again," Lightning admonished. She had forgotten that she was still staring until she was once again looking straight into those now familiar emerald green gems that Fang had somehow acquired as eyes. Lightning quickly snapped her head back to the direction of Mr. Palmer. From the corner of the room, Fang smirked to herself before slowly turning her attention back to the teacher as well.
"So with that being said, I will hand out your work booklets. For those who are here to further themselves intellectually," Mr. Palmer strode forward to hand two booklets to Fang and her friend, "if you get above a 90, you will receive extra credit in your history class."
"For those who are here as punishment," he looked up and made a 'come hither' motion with his free hand. There were too many bodies and he didn't feel like walking the circle the group of students made to deliver them personally, "If you get above a 90, you will not have to serve any future Saturday detentions for whatever grievance you committed to get you here."
There was a rush of people crowding to grab their booklet followed by an almost simultaneous groan among the masses once everyone realized how thick it was. "Mr. Estheim… you can do whatever your young heart desires with this. Use it as an informational guide, or firewood. I don't really care." Mr. Palmer handed the last booklet to the youngest member of the party. Hope timidly accepted and took a few steps back behind Mr. Palmer where he had been standing by himself.
"Now!" Mr. Palmer continued, "There are a lot of you, but there are a limited number of tapes for you to use in order to experience each stop of the exhibit more fully and better answer the questions in your booklet."
"Etro… He's trying to make sure that every sense is equally tortured in this trip," Lebreau whined.
"Therefore, you will have to break into groups of twos and share!"
Lightning immediately turned to Lebreau who nodded in agreement without even being asked. Across the room, Fang smiled and held up her arm for the redheaded girl to bump her own forearm against. "Steelguard!" Near the center of the room, Snow lifted his shoulder to block the fake punches that Gadot was currently barraging him with. Lightning watched with a look of disparagement. When Gadot noticed their audience, he stopped tapping Snow's shoulder to eye Lightning lecherously. The upper right side of Lightning's lip rose to accentuate the disgust that her scowl could not possibly display properly on its own. Gadot laughed and blew her a kiss. Lightning responded by giving him the finger.
The overall group just so happened to be composed of an odd number. Hope, naturally the odd man out, silently made his way through the crowd of students. Lightning spotted him immediately. "Poor kid," Lebreau lamented. "Wanna call him over to join us?"
"Yeah," Lightning nodded. "Ho—" the word hadn't even fully left her mouth before she fell silent. Hope had made his way over to Fang and the redheaded girl. He seemed to be giving the redheaded girl all his attention, occasionally looking in Fangs direction but never for long. The redhead smiled and nodded her head while Fang mussed the boy's hair.
"Well, I'll be…" Lebreau said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Little poindexter Estheim's got some moves."
"His dad would have a stroke if he knew he was willingly grouping with Pulsians," Lightning responded, somewhat curious of the young boy's actions herself. "Serah said that the only reason he came here was because he had a crush on some girl in… Oh."
"If partnering with one would give Papa Hope a stroke, then a crush might send him into cardiac arrest," Lebreau joked, paging through the thick booklet in her hands.
"Settle down, settle down," Mr. Palmer called from the front of the room, raising and lowering his hands in the air. "Do you all have partners?" He was answered by incoherent murmuring. "Good! Now wish them adieu and wait until I assign you your real partners."
Protests erupted through out the entire room. "Hehe, I just love doing that," Mr. Palmer chuckled before calling out the first two paired names.
It wasn't long before Lebreau's name was called. She was paired with Gadot. "Well, that was anticlimactic," she said, turning to shrug an apology before walking forward to stand with Gadot.
"Farron and Oerba Yun!"
Oerba Yun? Lightning stepped forward. She had a feeling… "Lightwad," a genial, accented voice greeted her.
"Oerba Yun?" she returned, her facial expression showing her critical opinion of the last name.
Fang's face dropped into and expression of mild irritation and she looked past Lightning towards the teacher. "Hmph… Bloody don't teach you Cocoonians anything about Gran Pulsian culture…" she muttered, reaching her hand out toward Mr. Palmer to receive the tape player.
"Now, hopefully you two can get along better in here so that you do NOT disturb my class in the future." Mr. Palmer eyed each girl carefully before handing Fang the player.
"Cause one thing we learn in your class is that history never repeats itself, yeah?" Fang replied with a light smile. Mr. Palmer responded with an unimpressed stare that almost read, 'Say another word, and I will end you.' Fang's face once again dropped, and she quietly took the tape player. "Just no pleasing anyone today, is there..."
The last group called was that of Oerba Dia and Villiers. Hope was allowed to choose to tag along with any group he desired, and, not so unexpectedly, he chose Snow's group. Fang lightly chuckled and nudged Lightning in the side with her elbow. Lightning looked down and glowered at the point of contact. Fang ignored the expression. "In over his head, that one is," she said in a low voice, nodding in the direction of Hope and Vanille.
"Now that you have your tapes, you are now free to roam about the Vestige!" Mr. Palmer announced, with outstretched arms. "I will be walking around keeping tabs on you. And just to make sure that no one gets sheisted in the work, the security guards and myself will be making sure that everyone stays with their partner and that no one leaves the Vestige until three, understood? Now get to work!"
All the groups parted and went their separate ways. The first two rooms immediately connected to the main lobby were crowded with students. Sensing Lightning's annoyance at having to wait and push through mobs of students in order to see some of the displays, Fang nudged her once again (earning the same result as before) and led the way through the Vestige to one of the back rooms that most of the students hadn't wandered off to yet.
For the most part, the pair walked around the Vestige in silence. Once in awhile, Fang would make snorting or clucking noises at things that she found comical. For instance, they happened upon one part of the exhibit that displayed the 'Golden Age' of Cocoon tech. Fang immediately read the sign and grinned, making a soft chortling sound. "More like the 'golden spoon' age," she muttered in a low voice.
Lightning thought she would be more offended, but she found herself soon making some of the same noises in unison with Fang whenever they read or listened to some part of the exhibit that seemed to overly uplift the work of the Cocoonians. Lightning even had to admit that even the silences between the two weren't that bad. Although they weren't actually talking, which Light seemed more comfortable with, they communicated with each other the entire time.
Fang stepped up to a rusted piece of equipment and rested her hands on her hips, staring the thing down. It was a metal box with an aesthetic hand sticking out of it. She looked over her shoulder to Lightning, slightly quirking her eyebrow. Whatta ya make of it?
Lightning stepped up closer to the rusted cube. Her brow slightly furrowed in concentration and her lips puckered to the side as if she were biting the inside of her cheek. I don't know. What does it do?
Fang looked down at the tag pasted to the box's podium. HELPING HAND. She gave Lightning a long, judgmental look. Your lazy asses made a box with a hand just so you could hold a burger, fries, and your drink at the same time?
The lines in Lightning's forehead creased a bit more and her brow deepened. Her eyes narrowed on Fang. It's probably the stepping-stone for something bigger, like a full-bodied robot.
Both of Fang's eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened. She looked both ways then landed her sights back on Lightning. I don't see any bloody full-bodied robots. Suddenly her eyes narrowed as well. Her lips lifted into a mischievous smirk as her eyes slowly roved back to the hand. Unless….
Lightning's eyes grew wide with an expression of incredulity. NO.
Fang's smirk had now transformed into a knowing grin. She tilted her head to the side and crossed her arms. That's probably why they could never get around to building a whole damn robot. She waggled her eyebrows suggestively and softly started thrusting her hips back and forth in the direction of the hand. Too busy poppin' off luckies, I bet.
Lightning sighed and rolled her eyes, walking to the next piece of laid out tech. Fang followed her with a goofy smile. They went on like this for an hour until they reached the 'Technology Has Many Faces' room.
Fang looked around the room apprehensively. This had to be the most unsettling room she had been in thus far. It was filled with helmets, visors, glasses, and masks. The helmets, which were the first pieces splayed out in the room, resembled some of the current day helmets of PSICOM. Fang shot them a quick, contemptuous glare and walked past them without giving them any more thought. Lightning quietly followed, only glancing back at the helmets once in slight confusion. Certainly Fang had some silent quip about PSICOM that she had been dying to get out?
Three masks were lined up next to each other near the back of the room. The two outside masks were tilted in opposite directions while the middle was standing straight up. Lightning scanned over the tags in front of them. COSMETIC MASKS. They were made to wear in order to moisturize skin, clear acne, or apply make-up. Fang slowly sauntered behind the first mask, her hips softly swaying as they usually did when she walked. She crouched down and tilted her head so that she was staring at Lightning through the two eyeholes. Lightning responded with an inquisitive hike of her eyebrow.
"So why don't I ever see you around?" Fang's voice finally broke the silence that the two had been carrying for a while now. It was kind of weird, Lightning thought to herself, as she stared into the green eyes that filled the mask. They had barely spoken to each other, but I felt as if they were simply continuing an old conversation.
"We have a class together," Lightning stated matter-of-factly, although she did not even notice that Fang had been in her class until recently.
"Outside of class, I never see you around." Fang crept sideways, now looking at Lightning through the eyes of the straightened, middle mask. "Why's that?"
"I dunno," Lightning replied, removing the tape player's headphones from around her neck. "I guess we aren't into the same things."
"What are you into?"
Lightning took slow steps past the masks, studying them as she went along. Fang moved along with her, tilting her head and staring at her through the last mask. After the short silence, she figured Lightning just wouldn't answer, so she continued. "I'm on the track and field team. Might be why we don't run into each other much after school. I'm always at practice."
Track and field. It was something Lightning was somewhat familiar with. For a brief time, she had once dated a track runner. It didn't take long for her to realize that she liked the workouts more than she actually liked the boy. "What events do you run?"
Fang's eyes lit up from behind the mask. Lightning couldn't tell for certain, but she was sure that the Pulsian was smiling. "I don't actually run in any events. I'm more of a field person, ya know. My specialty's the javelin. I pole vault and do the jumps too."
"Hmm." The image of Fang laid out across the car that morning earlier this week played across her mind. She had such long legs… "You just look like someone who'd be able to do well in the races."
"I would," Fang replied. "But we have enough good runners on the team to place favorably. Coach says they need me more for field."
"So you must be good."
"I'm the best."
Lightning let out an audible huff of disbelief. "You're not exactly the face of the track team."
With that, Fang slowly stood from behind the mask. Her eyes had noticeably lost some of that excitement from earlier but a distant smile still lingered on her lips. Lightning didn't know what it was she had said, but she felt herself regretting it. "School's not exactly ready for me to be the face of the track team," she said, walking over and gently taking the tape player out of Lightning's hands. "But for all it's worth, I do enjoy the field events much more." She gave Lightning a somewhat friendly smirk and placed the headphones over her ears.
Lightning then knew her mistake immediately. She wanted to do something to lighten the mood but nothing came to mind. Fang slowly traversed the room, listening to what the tape had to say about some of the masks and visors. After a moment, she stopped and looked toward a clock on the wall. She removed the headphones and walked back towards Lightning, handing her the tape. "Well. I think I've had enough of all this for today."
Lightning glanced at her own watch. "What do you mean? We still have ninety minutes before we can leave. The security guard won't let anyone out without ratting to Mr. Palmer."
Fang grinned. "Never said I was leaving the museum, love."
Lightning's brow wrinkled in confusion. "…then what are you talking about."
"Well…" Fang took slow, long strides forward, swinging her legs around as she moved to make it appear as if she was swerving, "I want to check out a different exhibit. One that's… not so public."
Lightning's eyes narrowed on the taller girl. "I'm not following…"
Fang stopped swaggering around the room and audibly sighed. "Did you know," she began, swinging on her heel to face Lightning, a finger pointed in the air, "that the Vestige stores a lot of Gran Pulsian artifacts, stolen from Gran Pulse, mind you, but does nothing with 'em? Just keeps 'em locked up in a room, left alone to be unappreciated."
"So?" Lightning asked bluntly. She folded her arms across her chest and continued to set a fixed stare on Fang through narrowed, crystal blue eyes.
"Well, I've already spent the first half of this trip learnin' all about Cocoon's technology. I wanna see technology from my own people. It's only fair, don't ya think?"
Lightning put her head down and pinched the bridge of her nose. "If it's locked up in some room, how are you going to see it? How do you even know it exists? I've never heard of the Vestige having a Pulse room."
"A GRAN Pulse room, thank you very much. And ya probably didn't hear about it because ya weren't listening for it," Fang smiled smugly, walking past the pink-haired girl. "Wanna check it out?"
"No!" Lightning spoke so quickly it surprised herself. Fang raised both eyebrows touchily and turned to head out the door.
"Wait!" Lightning called after her. "You can't just leave me here. You're going to get me in trouble! AGAIN."
Fang shrugged indifferently. "Then come with me."
Lightning looked at the ceiling in disbelief before leveling her view back to Fang. "What about the booklets? If I don't finish filling this out, I'm going to be stuck in Saturday detention for a month."
"Hmm." In an instant Fang was standing right back in front of Lightning, paging through her booklet. "I can answer all these questions." She glanced up at Lightning and grinned a little on seeing the look of skepticism on the girl's face. "It's part of the Gran Pulse Charter curriculum. They make sure we know the history and 'glorious feats' of Cocoon better than the damn Primarch himself."
Lightning turned away, an evident scowl plastered across her face. She had a feeling she would regret this. "Okay," she relented, glaring back into Fang's eyes. "But we better not get caught."
Fang glowed.