Day 55: Courtyard [2nd Shift]

[sheepwood]

After what seemed like an eternity of being amused, irritable, bored, in pain, in excruciating pain, and any combination of those, Guybrush was met by the same soldier who had led him to the cafeteria. He wasn't offered a trip to the Sun Room to check the bulletin board, but didn't push for it anyway. That would have been more walking, and moving

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[zack_fair]

It really didn't make any sense. Zack could agree with that. From what he was understanding, the vision of his death had suddenly assaulted Lightning when they'd crashed into each other, which meant that physical contact had been the trigger. But he'd made contact with Cloud and his friend had seemed fine, so was it Lightning who had been the cause of it? But how, and why?

She seemed just as puzzled about it as he was, though, and he wasn't sure this was something they could find an answer to so easily. There was always the bulletin, but Zack didn't really want to advertise his death for everyone to see. He could always be more vague about it, but...

He was getting ahead of himself. Lightning had asked him a question, and it happened to be one that had a complicated answer. Zack tilted his head up to the sky again, trying to figure out how much he should tell her. She definitely had the right to know some of it after what she'd seen, but he wasn't willing to bare it all either. He doubted Lightning would want all the details anyway.

"Cloud and I were part of our world's main military force, called Shin-Ra," he started as he turned his attention back toward her. There was a chance that she'd heard the term if she'd spoken to Cloud right after he'd woken up here, but he wasn't going to dwell on that. "Except they basically ended up turning on us and using us, so we got sick of it and decided to defect, more or less.

"Shin-Ra wasn't too happy with that, so they chased us down. I took Cloud as far as the major city, Midgar, but that was when they caught up with us." Zack realized that it had been stupid to run right back to where HQ was, but he hadn't known where else to go. And he had kept Cloud safe, so that was what mattered.

He'd left out everything about Sephiroth and the experiments that had been done on them, but he thought that was fine. He doubted that Cloud would want him telling people about that stuff, after all.

[thestormishere]

Lightning took in that answer, absorbing each of the unusual terms she heard: Shin-Ra... Midgar... and yet no mention of fal'Cie or l'Cie like she would have expected or perhaps even hoped to hear. Given the two men's form, she wasn't surprised at all to learn they were - or used to be - from the military, but...

"I see..." she said slowly, and though she didn't nod in understanding, her tone probably said enough when compared to her normal one. She knew a thing or two about defecting, even if hers had been... relatively peaceful. At first. Perhaps those PSICOM grunts should have known better, to suspect a sergeant who willingly handed off her custom gunblade and jumped on a train towards Pulse was up to something, but they'd been like her, hadn't they? People from Cocoon grew up knowing there was little to fear from their fellow man- it was Pulse they had to be careful of.

All of them had been so stupid....

Lightning tried not to think about it, else she grow upset, but still she felt something seem to twist inside of her at the injustice of it all. She put a hand on her chest, and even through the thick layers of clothing there could feel the presence of the Brand, like it was just waiting to advance on her- punishment for neglecting to even try and finish her Focus....

Abruptly, her demeanor hardened. Questions bubbled up to the front of her mind all at once, itching for more details about just what would cause them to try leaving, why Cloud had escaped the same fate that Zack apparently had...

But before she could so much as open her mouth again, interruption showed its ugly face in the form of the intercom system. Her lips pressed together as she listened, and she just barely resisted an eye roll at the orders contained within the message. Idiots. Instead, she turned back to Zack, thinking quickly.

"Whatever the case is... you're alive now," she said steadily, and she was sure to make eye contact as her brows drew together. If he knew what was good for him, maybe he'd start taking things a little more seriously. "Make sure you don't waste that."

[zack_fair]

That wasn't much of a reaction after everything else that had been explained, but Zack figured that Lightning was just letting it all sink in. Also, it was probably hard to know how to feel about it when he was speaking in such vague terms. And on top of that, what could you really say to someone who had died only to come back in the middle of a fake mental institution turned fake boot camp? With all that in mind, Zack could see why she was rendered speechless.

The intercom kicked everyone into action, though, as the soldiers started to move around in search of their assigned "cadets." Zack took in the words that had been announced, realizing that both he and Lightning would have to report. It couldn't be for anything good, either.

That also seemed to have spurred Lightning to give him some parting words. Everything she said was true, but it was also stuff that he'd already thought about and decided on his own.

"Don't worry, I have no intention of doing that," he said with a small smirk as he gave her a thumbs-up. He knew it was evasive to be making light of something that was actually very important, but that was just how he operated. He would definitely take her words to heart, though.

He could feel one of the soldiers boring a hole in his back, so he figured it was time to go. Giving the girl a quick wave, Zack nodded. "I'll see you around, Lightning."

[thestormishere]

Although Lightning was more or less adapted to being around people with less-than-solemn attitudes by now, that didn't mean it didn't still irk her when someone threw her a flippant response when she was trying to be resolved in her own way. She didn't bother sighing aloud at Zack, though... she'd save that for what she considered a worthier target: their military escorts.

She figured anyway that the actual meaning of her words were probably lost on the man- she could already tell that he was one who was likely all 'live life to its fullest' and that kind of thing, but there just wasn't time now to further explain. Therefore, her expression remained unchanged through the exchange, even as he moved to go and she opted for one last remark.

"Call me Light," she said simply, using that as her own farewell as her gaze drifted away to rest on the nearest, boulder-faced soldier instead-- and noted with disdain that it was one of the men she'd attacked the previous day. Regardless, she had no intention to directly 'report,' even as she refolded her arms and turned towards the door. If they intended to punish her further for something she still found entirely justifiable, then they would have to be the ones who came to her.