Lina headed out for the alleyway and found Jen and Amber waiting for her by the side of the street. "Hey guys," Lina called quietly as she approached them. They nodded in her direction and smiled feebly. Lina felt uncomfortable throughout of the duration of the pause, so she tried her best to free them from it, "So...how's it going?"
"Okay I guess," Amber shrugged and Jen nodded along with her. The two always seemed like they were in agreement about everything, the good and the bad--even if that meant mistreating Lina in the past. Lina looked at the two of them who happened to be conveniently wearing T-shirt revealing the majority of their arms. She noticed the similar cuts to her own just above their right elbows and she beckoned to the cut on her arm and shrugged, a bit suspicious of why they all had similar wounds.
"Weird... I had a dream about some blond guy... and for some reason there was fire and all this junk," Jen said as she recalled her dream. Lina had her brow knit in concentration. That was strange, she'd never introduced Seifer to the other girls, how would Jen and Amber be having dreams with him in them?
"Yeah... Seifer," Lina nodded and carried on with the explanation of the strange dream which seemed to have been dreamt by all three of them on similar terms. "Then there were these ropes that just felt like snakes constricting my breath. That was probably the worst part. I couldn't understand what he was doing until the fire produced some kind of pink bladed sword..."
"Exactly!" Jen exclaimed. "Except he offered me more of a thin bladed saber."
"Mine was a dagger," Amber said rather dreamily. She held her hands out in front of herself to demonstrate about what length the weapon was according to the dream. Jen shrugged and smiled, obviously recalling the sword she'd seen. Lina couldn't quite understand exactly why they seemed so excited about the ordeal; to her, the dream had been a nightmare, worse than anything she could have possibly imagined, but here were the other girls treating it like a festival.
"I accepted the sword... it was too cool to pass off an offer like that," Jen announced, obviously proud. She tried to shrug it off again, but she'd always been bad at acting. To Jen, everything was either "cool" or "pretty", never in between or anything that could ultimately wreck her barely existent reputation of "hardcore". If it were anything in the latter category, she may as well have had a fit right then and there.
"I accepted too!" Amber called, almost childishly so. "It was so cool! Like all those people on television swinging their combat swords around and all!" She waved her arm out and jabbed her arm forward as if she knew what she was doing. Lina just smiled and nodded because the acting shown on television programs such as in their community was her reality. She'd seen plenty of times combat with such swords, and along with it, their often brutal results. Maybe that was what seemed to frightening to her that seemed so intriguing to her friends.
They were to continue chatting until they heard a loud clang from behind them. Lina exchanged nervous glances from the two girls, then they slowly turned around and found suddenly, propped upright by a firm stand in the dirt, the exact three weapons they'd been so focused on throughout their conversation.
"The swords!" Jen called as she raced towards the sword with the pink tinted blade, "Frikken A, that one is awesome!" As soon as her fingers reached within an inch of its hilt, her hand was thrown back by some invisible force. She flinched, but had no time to hesitate for immediately her hand shot around the hilt of the silver saber. Her eyes immediately dilated and became engulfed by an eerie black.
"The pink one's so pretty!" Amber cried and she took her turn to dive for it, but she too was thrown back. "Darn... Oh well! The dagger was the one in my dream anyway." She picked it up and her eyes also morphed into a sudden black. The two's facial expressions became bleak and emotionless. Suddenly, Lina wasn't so sure what had happened and as she searched their visages for some kind of clue, she could find nothing. Just nothing.
"Jen? Amber?" Lina asked, but there was no response from then. Lina looked at the sword and it seemed for a slight second a single light shone down upon it--a single actor, center stage. Lina could feel her insides boil with a hot fury, but she couldn't understand it. "What's gotten into you two?"
"Pick it up," Jen said monotonously. Lina looked at her, but her visage was bleak. Her eyes turned back to the sword and she could feel the fear and rage surging through her veins again. That very sword--the one standing directly at twelve o'clock, threatening the living daylights out of her--was in her nightmare, the same which Seifer had been in. It was synonymous with trouble. "I said pick it up!" Jen shouted again, but Lina refused. And this time, Jen, in one quick swipe, slit a red line onto cheek. The blood crowded in the open wound which stung tears into Lina's eyes, but refused to drop.
As Lina cautiously stepped toward the weapon, the tip of Jen's blade followed her all the way. Lina heaved a deep breath out of her system, then precariously her shaking finger tips touched the firm black hilt of the sword. Her body immediately stiffened, urging her hand to grasp the entire thing. Her fingers traced the leathery grip and she could feel the fear race through her, screaming for dear life--don'ttouchthat. Too late; before she knew it, the weapon was in her hand and in the air. The dull tinted pink blade began to glow bright and vibrant and Lina's eyes, focused on the weapon became black and dilated, as if in a trance.
She couldn't feel her feet anymore. Was she standing on the ground, or was there even anything around her? The walls seemed to be spinning around her and she was so dizzy. She couldn't see anything clearly, just vague colors splashed around in an indistinct background to the single actor, now in her hands. However, the idea was switched; Lina was in the hands of the ancient sword, completely under its fearsome rule.
At an unfortunate timing, Irvine rounded the corner and found the girls with their weapons, "Hey, hey ladies," Irvine called up and headed in to join the conversation (assuming there was one.) "Whoa there! What's up with the blades?" Amber and Jen's glare fluctuated from Lina to Irvine. Their eyes narrowed and their grips tightened with the intention to destroy, to rip limb from limb. Irvine hesitated. "Lina?" Lina's bleak gaze moved slowly upward until her focus was fixed on Irvine; he froze--that wasn't Lina. "Well... um... I'd better get going now... you know, ladies are awaiting my company elsewhere." He started to back away from the trap he'd inflicted on himself.
Before they could get a good swipe at him, he fled. He ran as quickly as his legs could carry his down the marketplace, but behind him he could hear their swift steps, the sound of barrels and stands being shredded to bits, and cries of innocents fleeing the horror scene. Irvine knew his path was leading more trouble to others, so he ran as quickly as he could to the city limits. Out and into the desert, his legs brought him until he thought his chest would explode with the exhaustion. He knew what had to be done.
He pulled his gun out and loaded a shot. As soon as he knew he had some distance on them, he turned around and propped his gun out in front of him. They were in the middle of nowhere, maybe a good portion of a mile out of the city already, and the rocky landscape ran on for miles more. He had to stop them now. There was no where else to turn to.
"Come on, Kinneas, you're a sniper, you can do this," he muttered to himself as he put his finger on the trigger, but the adrenaline made his aim unsteady. The three drew nearer to him, all in a line, and so he calmed himself down, remembering those he loved: Selphie, the guys, Quistis, Rinoa, and the Lina he'd playfully argued with so many times over her blind spot of her own emotions.
He pulled the trigger.
The weapons fell to the ground. His aim was perfect, no one was hurt. He sighed and set his Exeter back in its place. Jen and Amber looked around, thoroughly confused, their pupils returning to their usual color. Lina fell to the ground, panting. What the hell happened?
"What's going on?" Amber asked. Lina pressed her palms against the ground and took heaves of air to free herself from the horror that was the sword.
"I can't breathe..." Lina muttered. She had felt this sensation before: something crushing her lungs, regulating them to a beat different from her own. Its icy grasp around her breath had never ceased to frighten her to tears.