The One Who Didn't Belong
Fang strutted down the halls of the l'Cie training facility, spear strapped to her back. For every slapped-together training room she passed, each batch of recruits within practiced one of several kinds of powers their brand gifted them, all recorded and distributed to those in the need-to-know by the paper pushers she shared the hallway with.
And of course, despite blending in a bit better here, she still had to pretend she didn't hear people running their mouths as she passed.
"Uh, who's...?"
"Beats me. A recruit from the refugee groups, maybe?"
"Is that in style where she's from?"
"A-And, uh, how do you get that chiselled? Like crystal..."
Okay, so maybe she smirked hearing that last one come from one of the gals in that swarm of clipboards. Not to mention, those abs really were crystal until recently. She'd have to work to keep them that way now.
Maybe she could kill two wyverns with one stone, then.
She stopped short at another training room. This one's schedule didn't have a role written in, but "General Formation Prep." Some of the more advanced recruits, she supposed. Good. Fang slipped through the wide-open entrance, sidling along the wall until she got a good view.
In every corner of the room, groups of l'Cie recruits tried out their powers against PSICOM's robotic training dummies, with a few key differences to the other classes: all were in groups of two to three, and every group flashed various colours from time to time as they shifted their power sets. With this many groups training, the place could pass for a nice view of the lightbugs on the water back home.
The group she stood nearest could be doing way better, though. They were half-and-half Cocoon natives and apparent outworlders, and the team taking their turn at the moment was just the same. An outworlder in dress closer to hers than anyone flickered between red and blue, while his partner, the spitting image of a Cocoon softie, swapped between blue and grey. Despite the fine pairing of roles, though, the training dummy barely registered their hits.
The outworlder threw down his baton, whirling around to his partner. "Would you do something, already? The measure's barely moving!"
The Cocoon man just huffed, mechanized staff in his crossed arms. "And do what, heal it to death? You're the only one with any punch here, all I've got is a dinky waterball."
"Then use it!"
"I have been!"
Fang sighed. Pushing off from the wall, she sauntered through the group. Almost refreshing, seeing little brow raises and awe instead of jolting double-takes at the sight of her. Once she broke through the front, she planted herself between them. "Alright, spill it. What's got you two all in a huff?"
"This idiot might as well not be here, that's what! If I could go solo and do just as much on the offense, what's the point?"
The Cocoon man's cheeks puffed in a pout. "And again, what do you expect me to do? I'm using all I've got for offense, my last role's Medic, for crying out loud!"
She sighed, hands at her hips. "Typical." With a practised flourish, she undid her spear's strap and planted it in the ground with a whirl. "Both 'o you, roles, let's hear 'em."
The outworlder crouched down to scoop up his baton. "Commando, Ravager, Sentinel. That last one's not doing much until we have dummies that fight back."
"Ravager, Medic, Saboteur. Like I said, not much there to do."
Something sparked in her. Now those, those roles she could work with. "You said Saboteur, yeah?"
He shied back, clutching his staff closer. "Yeah, but, well... It's piddly damage, and a robotic dummy isn't getting poisoned anytime soon."
A debuffer, rather than a debilitator. She smirked, turning to face him. "Alright, what else? Imperil? Deshell? Deprotect?"
"That last one, yeah." His shoulders slumped. "Not that it'll help much. A little bit of softened armour is nothing compared to just going all out. If only I could do that in the first place."
"Right, then." She plucked the spear's planted tip out of the floor, giving the whole thing a few spins as she approached the dummy. With a snap of her fingers, a red spark coursed through her. "Let's check that theory, shall we?" She dropped into a thrust stance. With a sharp lunge, the dummy jolted a bit, but the sparking energy of apparent shielding around it had the speartip sliding away as the attack landed. Even so, she moved the measures more than either did together. "Mm. Sturdy. I like it." Fang strutted off to the side, then gestured to the dummy with her weapon. "Go on, then. Deprotect, however long it takes to stick."
With a sigh and a flash of grey, the Cocoon man gave a few flicks of the hand, willing a miasma around the dummy each time. Around the fourth cast, the protective barrier turned red and crackly, sparking against the miasma.
"Alright, you got it. Now..." She stepped back in front of the dummy, taking up her original stance. When she stepped forward to thrust, however, she smirked and planted her spear in the floor instead, pushing off it for a kick to the dummy's torso.
And despite a leather sole's obvious disadvantages to a spear, she left a crater on impact and the support pole bent hard enough the dummy now stared somewhere above them all.
She glanced to the measuring instruments. "I dunno 'bout you, but I think that's an improvement, eh?" Sparks, sputters, and a few wisps of smoke were all the results it would give, though the disparity spoke for itself.
"W-Whoa..." The Saboteur stared down at his free hand, flicking wisps of the miasma across his palm.
"It's really that simple, tough guy." Fang laid her spear across her shoulders. "If ya can't break things yourself, you make it nice 'n easy for the others. Think you've got that for next round?"
"Uh, pardon me, but what next round?" With a flick of the baton, the outworlder gestured to the smoking scrap heap. "Kinda a problem, I'd think."
"True, true." She chuckled under her breath. "Guess I'll just have to own up to it, eh?" A snap of the fingers, and a yellow flash. She braced with the pole of her spear in front, and a dome of pale green energy coalesced around her. "Need dummies that fight back for Sentinel practice, that's what you said, right? We'll see about that. The Medics'll get a chance too, at this rate." For a brief moment, she let the shield fall, then beckoned with a hand. "Now, come at me!"
By the time she cycled through enough groups that the outworlder in the first pair volunteered to take her place, Fang's whole body burned in the best of ways, and as she ambled back to her perch against the wall on shaky feet, several members of the group offered their greetings. Whether outworlder or Cocoon citizen, she got a bouquet of high fives, pats to the shoulder, and even a shy bow from the Saboteur with the mechanical staff.
Though watching her unofficial group's progress was satisfying, she found her eyes wandering to the side. There, a pair of l'Cie had just begun pumping out numbers on the measures, and each took turns flickering purple. Synergists, and in a pair who knew how to get their unique options to complement each other.
"Wait, is that... Well, I'll be darned!"
A bushy afro and a pair of pistols on one side, and frizzy white hair with a rifle on the other. Raines's handpicked l'Cie, well on their way to making something of themselves. And with guns loaded with more buffs than bullets, the training dummy sure agreed with that assessment.
Still, Fang bit her lip. Unless there was a third member she and Vanille took in somewhere in the foggy mess that was her memories of the latter half of their journey, she didn't have much in the way of practice with Synergists. More often than not, she'd keep things from moving while Vanille shattered their defenses. That was more than sufficient for their unenhanced selves to deal a heavy blow. These new teammates, though...
She leaned her head back, her laugh fading into the cacophony of the training centre. "Ah, who knows. Maybe they'll make me better than ever." Her eyes drifted shut. "Maybe... Maybe they'll make me good enough to tear down the sky for you."
--
Two things I feel necessary to note:
1. Deprotect and Deshell are essentially magical versions of Armor Break and Mental Break from FF10, but a bit weaker in exchange. Whereas the FF10 statuses lower their respective Def stat to 0 (and remove the Armored keyword in Armor Break's case), Deprotect and Deshell remove 89% of resistance to their respective damage type. Which is an oddly specific number, but I'm sure it calculates out to a more even number when checking the effective amp or something.
2. Fang has the highest Strength stat in FF13 and it's not close. You can honestly get away with giving her the Pandoran Spear to make her Debilitate skills stick instead of cranking her offense; she'll still hit about as hard, and your Target Times will be more generous.
I think I got distracted from the prompt somewhere in there, but eh, that was nice to get written out regardless.
