The Shot Heard Round Pulse(Rikku,Lightning)PLOT

[Denzel]

“….In this time of crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, the Director of the Academy and my good friend, Hope Estheim.E

The voice of the announcer could be heard calling out the Hope’s arrival onto the platform. The area was packed with people from all over Pulse who had come to hear the Director’s speech about the future. The Academy certainly picked a good place to hold the event though since even though there were so many people everyone could still fit around the podium and be able to hear Hope through the speaker’s placed around the square.

“Thank you, Dr. Valance. People of Gran Pulse didn’t come to you today to pepper you with jargon about why the Academy is going to help lead you to a brighter day, or help you return home, or help put any other worries on your mind at ease. I hope we’ve managed to reassure you already that it’s our goal to see the chaos brought to an end and all of the refugees returned home.E

The Young Director, Hope, began speaking addressing the large crowd that had gathered together. Being small enough to push through, Denzel had managed to secure a spot close to the side of the stage. He had heard that the Academy was planning on holding a large event to put people’s minds at ease and the boy hoped he’d be able to find some of his answers here. Looking around through the crowd he tried to strain his eyes to see if he could spot Tifa somewhere in all of this mess after they got separated, instead he noticed armed guards from the Academy, although he didn’t know, and several people moving suspiciously toward the front of the stage with a girl.

“What I want to remind you of today is something that only the history books speak of. As many of you know, I am as misplaced in this time as many of you. I was born on Cocoon when it was still a floating planet in the sky, and I experienced the fal’Cie crisis first-hand. The people of Cocoon were experiencing what many to be the end of their world. If the fal’Cie had turned against them, the beings that they had relied on for the entirety of their lives, how could they hope to survive the future?E

At this point of the speech Denzel brought his attention back up to the stage where Hope was standing. It sounded like he was talking about something important, or maybe just a history lesson, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know too much about the white haired man or the Academy other than what Tifa had told him over the past week, but they seemed alright if a little scholarly and idealistic for his tastes. It seems they did have their share of troubles though. Letting his eyes drift back to the front as the commotion started to pick up as they started yelling at each other. Peeking out through the crowd he saw the girl was gagged and on her knees looking really pissed off at her captors.

“Those people were your ancestors. They may have faltered at times, but in the end they endured, and Gran Pulse, even with its great dangers, became-E

Suddenly Hope’s words were cut off as gunshots rang out through the crowded square. Not knowing what to do Denzel panicked as he looked around the chaos of the crowd as the gunfire seemingly came from every direction from regular dressed people. Taking a few steps back the boy turned ran until he reached the wall of a building that faced the square squatting himself down by the wall as he covered his head with his arms. He’d seen scenes likes more times than he’d liked too of gunfire being used in public, but never directly on civilians like this. Poking up his head slightly he tried calling out, “Tifa! Tifa!Esearching the crowd frantically now holding his hands over his ears to try to muffle some of the gunfire.

[dani]

She doesn't know wrong from right She doesn't know when to fight

Another Sunny Day C'mon get out

Rikku was on guard duty. Her eyes found it hard to stay put where they should though, thus her focus was always on other things. She was on the far right side of the location where Hope Estheim was giving his hoity-toity speech about peace and love and, well Rikku didn't know. Originally she joined the Academy to help people. It was that or trot around in big clanky metal-like suits all day. Not only that but something was off with PSICOM. They reminded her of Yevonites. Even when she first arrived she knew to keep her distance. Their sense of entitlement made her sick. Rikku had a uniform on today, however. She did not wear her normal attire. Of course she felt like she was dying due to heat.

Her hair was even constrained in a bun. Definitely not normal for the wild, green eyed Al'Bhed girl. Her squad leader had demanded that she look decent for this day, to which Rikku had a few words to say but she wisely chose to keep them to herself. For once.

All in all the speech so far was a huge drag for her. Rikku wanted to help people. Not herd them. A soft touch on her left shoulder caused Rikku to uncross her arms in alarm. Turning she saw an aggravated face staring back at her. The face of her company commander. Something was wrong, "Is your com device on your person, Rikku? We've been trying to send you a stress code for thirty minutes. Something's amiss," the chin of the older woman quivered in obvious annoyance.

Rikku smiled nervously, "Uhm.. Oopsie. I guess I... forgot to turn it on," she reached beside her ridiculous outfit and switched her communicator on quickly. It emitted a loud screech before Rikku began hitting it awkwardly, trying to make it shut up before Ms. Too Much Red Lipstick realized she took out a piece of it the day before to use on a new doohickey. "Ehehehe..he.." She flicked the volume device down and turned her head back up to face her Commander. If any more annoyance could fit on one face Rikku's mind would have been effectively blown.

Too Much Lipstick cleared her throat, "Keep an eye out and an ear re-" at that moment gun fire erupted around them. A bullet barely missing Rikku while clipping her commander's left ear set Lipstick screaming in surprise. Yanking her down to the ground quickly Rikku began dragging her along behind her, shitshitshitshitshit. Wait. What about Hope? Shouldn't that be one of her main goaly things? Halting she spun around, "Should we go up there?" Rikku noted the paleness of (let's give her a name now because she was SHOT for christ's sakes,) Regina's face and the blood that now soiled her white-colored shoulder pads. Her hand was covering what was left of her ear, "Hope would w- ow - want us to help the people. We should help the civilians. I am sure he'll be fine."

Rikku was sure there was a story behind that because, quite honestly, Hope looked like a pansy. Nodding, Rikku let go of her hand, "I'll go then. You'll be okay?" Rikku stated, pointing at her own ear. Regina simply nodded. After the exchange the wounded Academy officer weaved her way back the way she came. Probably to resume her post. Rikku assumed that her new post was in the crowds now. This was serious and Rikku hated to see sad faces. Looking around she could already see many fallen citizens. There would be many sad faces at the end of this day. Now set with the grim task at hand Rikku quickly activated her Garment Grid, accessing her Thief dressphere. In a show of lights she ditched the itchy uniform and donned something a little bit more Rikku. Okay. Lets do this!

With her dual-blades in hand she felt well equipped for the task at hand. No matter how much clothing she lacked. Her change in dressphere had brought on the attention of a couple PSICOM lackeys. Like I needed to ask. Buncha stupid-heads like PSICOM. It had to be them. Rikku charged. She used her blades to ward off any bullets before jumping up in air and slashing her target with one of her blades. The cut threw him for a loop. Rikku seized that moment to finish him quickly before moving along through the crowd.

© to DANI

[Lightning Farron]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #0F0F0F; height: 400px; width: 350px; -webkit-border-radius: 4em; -moz-border-radius: 4em ; border-radius: 4em; box-shadow: #1C1B1C 0px 0px 7px;] One track mind, one track heart IF I FAIL I'LL FALL APART Lightning stood tall, and for the most part, unmoving during the speech. The ghost of a smile passes her lips as she listened to Hope speaking. She was so proud of the man he had become. Even in the wildest parts of her imagination she had never expected this. Her hand made its way to rest over her heart as he spoke. More importantly, over where the L'Cie brand was placed on her skin all those years ago. Five hundred odd years ago she left the Guardian Corps, and became a L'Cie, an enemy of Cocoon all trying to save her sister. It was five hundred years ago that she met the rest of their odd little family. She couldn't quite wrap her mind around that. It was all so fresh in her memory, it felt as if it were yesterday. She scoffed at her own thoughts, of all the silly cliches. Despite being in guard, she was not wearing an active communicator. She wasn't quite up to taking orders from a commanding officer. She didn't know if she could take one seriously after all they'd been through. Her gunblade was resting in it's holster at the back of her thighs. She wore an outfit that bore a striking resemblance to her Guardian Corps uniform. The skirt was mostly the same. Instead of the shoulder pad signifying rank, it bore the Academy insignia. Her shoulder cape was colored in the aquamarine color on the Academy uniform, much to Lightning's dismay. She was not a fan of pastels. Her gloves were lemon yellow instead of blue, and her boots were a pair of plain black combat boots she'd become fond of. The bag and gun holster were done in aquamarine as well. All in all she was comfortable in the outfit. It allowed for movement in battle, and she was used to it. When gunshots began ringing out, her eyes darted instantly to Hope. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to protect him above all others but she pushed them down. She had a job to do. Helping civilians was her first priority. Hope could handle himself. He was trained well, and an adult now. He wasn't the fourteen year old boy she had to protect anymore. She could only hope that whoever this was attacking weren't going for him directly. She flipped her communication system on, not caring for instructions, instead to figure out where the rest of the guards were, and what they were doing. Everything seemed to be being handled fairly well. Her teeth clenched as she pulled out her Blazefire Saber. She still had the one gifted to her by Etro, but she didn't want to cause unnecessary panic by summoning a weapon into existence from thin air. She wasn't sure how the rest of the guards were armed but she sure as hell wasn't getting into a firefight with no weapons. "Don't panic. Everybody stay low and stay put." She yelled, hopefully loud enough to be hear over the commotion. Her orders rang above most of the noise, but only so far. She couldn't control the entire crowd. Bunch of filthy terrorists. She knew what this was. They wanted the crowd panicked and they wanted noise and chaos and destruction. She flipped the Blazefire Saber to gunmode and let off a few shots toward the PSICOM personnel. Even though not all of them were in uniform they were still easy to spot amoung the panicked crowd. Their movements were militant and controlled, there was a pattern, a plan, behind them. She let out a few more shots at the attackers. As the crowd became more and more panicked she flipped her weapon back into a sword. She didn't want any civilian blood on her hands because of a misfire. She noticed the blond girl switch out of her uniform. Lightning curled a lip. "Uniforms are to be worn so that we can differentiate our people from our attackers."

[/color]Lightning shouted through the COM system, hoping to be heard over the noise. That's what they got for allowing foreigners and civilians on the force with no training. The girl practically turned herself into a nice target for both sides of this. There was no lost love between herself and PSICOM. She had never enjoyed war casualties, but these PSICOM extremists weren't people she'd mourn. Through the crowd she spotted a boy. He was brunette and small. He wasn't panicking for an exit or hiding, instead he seemed to be combing the crowd, looking for someone. He was calling something out that she couldn't quite make out, but covering his ears against the noise. She scoffed, that was effective. She waded through the people towards him, ordering people to stay low as she went. A few bullets strayed her way and she blocked them, switching her blade back to a gun and firing a few of her own.

"Kid you need to stay low. Whoever you're looking won't be able to find you if you're dead."[/color] She wasn't sure why of all people here she went straight for this one. She reasoned most likely because he reminded her of Hope, but mostly because he seemed tough as nails for his age. Whoever he was looking for had to mean a great deal to him, which was something that usually went both ways.
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tag: Rikku and Denzel and TBD
notes: Woo new post

Maybe this is all a Test
'Cause I feel Like I'm the worst
So I always act like I' m the best.

table by Keikei @ BTN

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[Denzel]

Denzel wasn’t sure how long he had been standing there in the plaza calling out to Tifa, all he knew was his voice was starting to give out and his ears were ringing from the constant gunshots. He barely registered a pink haired woman approach him telling him to stay low, “Huh? Oh, yeah.” He responded coming back to himself reaching behind his back where he kept his pole to find it wasn’t there. ‘That’s right I left it at the bar for the speech today.’ He thought to himself before looking around at the scene trying get his bearings through the chaos. ‘Yeah that looks like the right way.’

With a confirming nod he broke out into a run pushing his way through the crowd before turning back around. “I’ll be right back, thanks for the help mam!” He called back as loud as he could hoping his voice could still reach her before spinning back to resume running. In this situation it probably would’ve been better to get back to the bar and stay there, but Denzel was tired of always having to stay behind and having other people protect him all the time. At least outside the plaza there seemed to be a lot fewer gunshots being fired, and the few hostiles he managed to dodge around to the side and pushing them away.

Finally seeing the sign for the new 7th Heaven Bar, the boy noticed there were still a couple armed people between him and the bar. Without slowing down he kept running for the door deciding to try a trick he picked up from Marlene to slide between the legs of one, grabbing the man’s ankles as he went causing the man to stumble as he lost his balance. ‘That’ll slow them down hopefully,’ he nodded as reached the door. Flinching a bit as a shot hit the door inches from his head, quickly opening the door he moved himself inside before closing it again using his body as a brace. Looking around the bar he soon caught sight of his pole already in its new holster to easily slide on his back.

Having retrieved his weapon he cracked the door a little before leaving and closing it carefully behind him. Pulling the pole out from behind his back he let it hang at his side in his right hand as he began jogging once again back to the plaza. This time instead of simply avoiding the ones doing the shooting, he made sure to hit them in the stomach and a swing from behind into their back as he ran. Arriving back at the plaza it looked a lot clearer than it had not an hour earlier during the speech, between people fleeing to escape or laying on the ground wounded or worse there were a lot less just milling around. As he was looking around the square the brunnete caught stray bullet to his left shoulder causing him to drop to his knees. Looking at the wound while clutching it in his right hand he tried concentrating on something that could help, ‘If only I had a Potion or Cure Materia I could fix this up.’ He thought, his right hand glowing green as he thought about “Cure” and he was able to feel the pain leave his shoulder, it still hurt, but at least it wasn’t bleeding anymore and it did give him some health back. Standing back up he charged the nearest person holding a gun with his arm pulled back into a swing.

[dani]

She doesn't know wrong from right She doesn't know when to fight

Another Sunny Day C'mon get out

A noise blazed from her dismembered COM once again. It seemed as though the darn thing had shook around so much in her top that it switched on. Rikku had a hunch that it was some higher-up yelling at her for being out of uniform. If they expected her to fight in that stuffy thing then they obviously wanted her to get hurt quickly. Her brow tugged as she struggled to see what was ducking through the crowd before her. A tuft a brown hair passed her, shoving her away. Rikku was annoyed at first, had the kid mistook her for an adversary? Yelling after him she called, "Hey you, stupid kid!"

There were a few reasons she called him stupid. One, he pushed her. Sure, there were guns firing and people dying, given the situation Rikku decided to let that slide. But there were Academy uniforms everywhere, why didn't the kid get help from someone before he got himself killed? Rikku decided to take action anyways. Charging after a nearby PSICOM soldier, Rikku spun her dagger in hand, preparing to stab it through before he grabbed the kid who was now running between his legs. The runt yanked the guys legs out from under him, sending him crashing to the ground right before her dagger met her mark. Rikku chuckled. He had spunk, that's for sure. Stepping around the fallen guard, Rikku followed the little boy, watching him as he entered a nearby building. Assuming the kid had made it to a safe place, his home perhaps, Rikku about faced to the crowd, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

"Phew, drec ec kuehk du pa y muhk tyo. E haat y pydr," she muttered in Al bhed. There was an Academy officer nearby. Rikku had heard about her here and there from other lowbies she talked to every now and then. Her name was Lightning. Like Rikku had been a hero from her world, Lightning seemed to be one of this one. She made her way around PSICOM with ease, although Rikku sensed an aura of hesitation. She didn't seem too keen on killing. Rikku wasn't either... not really. But since she'd arrived here she was told she could help by fighting and protecting the wanderers. Looking around, Rikku realized that there were probably people like her on their side too. The fact made her shudder as she sighed. Wherever she ended up, there was always conflict.

She heard someone speak near her. The boy that was there previously had came back out apparently and was fighting off the unwanted guests as well. He thwacked them with a long metal rod. Rikku tensed when she saw him get shot but he hadn't let that slow him down it seemed. When he swung at the PSICOM dude that had shot him, catching him hard in the gut with his rod, Rikku pounced on the opportunity, slicing the terrorist upwards and feeling her blade sink into the tender flesh of his neck. As their opponent fell to the ground lifelessly, Rikku resumed a fighting stance, "You pushed me earlier. But that's alrighty kid. It got my attention. Im Rikku and I could use a little help takin out the trash," she spoke with a sheepish grin.

"Stay alive and help people. You can use cure. Could you help some of the hurt civilians around? Cast cure on them! Get them back up and I'll help you get them to safety. Maybe we could tell them to seek shelter in that bar you ran into earlier?" It wasn't like Rikku to take charge. She'd rather do her own thing but she'd hate to see this kid get hurt anymore than he already had.

© to DANI

[Lightning Farron]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #0F0F0F; height: 500px; width: 350px; -webkit-border-radius: 4em; -moz-border-radius: 4em ; border-radius: 4em; box-shadow: #1C1B1C 0px 0px 7px;] One track mind, one track heart IF I FAIL I'LL FALL APART Lightning flinched at the gunshot that hit the boy. She lifted her hand, switching focuses to move to heal him, but her eyes widened when he did it for himself. That was good. Well, as good as it could be in his situation. She spun quickly, and sent an electrified blade through the stomach of the man who shot him. Her blade came out relatively clean, she guessed due to the electricity used in the strike. She bunched her nose as the body twitched from the electricity running through him. Killing wasn't her thing, but this was a war. There were going to be casualties, and she had to make sure that she wasn't one of the bodies. Not her and not her friends. Hopefully not the kid either. She caught up with the oddly dressed girl, and the young boy moments later. She rummaged through her pocket and shoved an arm band with the Academy insignia on it towards the girl. "If you aren't going to be dressed in Uniform you need something to differentiate you from our attackers."

[/color] She growled at the woman. She fired off a few stray thunder spells towards any attackers that dared move toward them, usually followed by gunshots from the Blazefire Saber. The electric spells had always been her specialty. Ironic since she chose Lightning for her name. She was never the most powerful when it came to the magic stuff.

She swore when a bullet hit her gun hand, sending the weapon flying. Her hand flew to be cradled against her chest. A cure spell was applied over the bloody hand. Just a bullet graze. She's shot through worse pain. Her eyes harened and instead of running after her Blazefire Saber, she summoned her Traditional Gunblade into existence. The kick back was a little heavier in the thing. Her right shoulder was going to be sore tomorrow. She marched over and picked up the gunblade she dropped, however. No need to leave a live weapon lying around.

"I don't suppose wither of you know how to shoot?" She asked looking at their choices of weapon. She didn't like letting others use her blades but anything was better than the metal rod the kid was bludgeoning people with. Good for disabling, but given his height it wouldn't actually put any killing blows on his adversaries. Not that she wanted him to actually have to kill people. Though if it was between him and the other guy she'd much prefer the other guy lying lifeless on the ground. The life never seemed to be fair on this world.

"If you decide to help out, you should stay close." She added to the girl's directions to the boy. "You may be able to cast cure, but if you get a fatal wound it probably won't be enough. The gunmen don't seem to be particularly organized anymore." She looked him over. He didn't have a mana drive on him. That meant he was probably a L'Cie. Poor kid. She let out a few more gunshots. She spotted a sniper behind the kid and she swore. She aimed over his shoulder. "Cover your ears and don't move a muscle." She warned. She gave him a couple of moments, but took the shot whether he complied or not. She swore at the kick back that time. Her weapon had a good range, but she had to keep the weapon perfectly steady to make a shot like that. She watched the sniper flinch to the right, just the shoulder then. She let off another shot at him, and watched the sniper fall from his perch. If the gunshot didn't kill him that time, the fall would have. She rolled her sore shoulder. She might end up in a sling after this for a while. She didn't worry about it right now too much. She was glad for the new weapon, however. She wouldn't have been able to make that shot with the Blazefire Saber.
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tag: Denzel, Rikku, Open
notes: Sorry for the delay guys

Maybe this is all a Test
'Cause I feel Like I'm the worst
So I always act like I' m the best.

table by Keikei @ BTN

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