ingustaejin:

Anger and determination riled within Ingus, coursing through his veins and heating his muscles. Once back on his feet, Ingus heaved a deep breath and focused his eyes on Faris.

Just like Father….

The phantom of his dad flashed before his eyes, along with the nostalgic smell of sweated bodies. This woman was no beast, not by a long shot, so fighting her would require a little more than expecting an opening to present itself.

The tip of Faris’ blade poked at Ingus’ defensive zone, teasing the borders in which he decides to dodge or block. He allowed the first jab to pass, while merely shifting his waist from danger.

Whether it was impatience, or simply a shot of adrenaline, Ingus deemed his analytical phase effectively over. Now, it was time to party. He lunged forward at Faris before she could prepare for another thrust. Ingus focused all of his weight onto his toes, as to increase speed and evasiveness. To accentuate the burst of speed, Ingus gripped his blade with both hands to amplify power, thus sacrificing defense on both planes. 

The First strike was diagnol, hip to shoulder, as he had previously done before. Whether hit or miss, it was followed by another diagnol slash going in the opposite direction, and again with a horizontal slash. The directions of the attacks didn’t matter as much as the power put behind them. With every clashing of steel, Ingus found himself drawing closer and closer to Faris.

Once our swords lock, and our wrists touch, I’ll feign pressure and lean all of my weight into my right shoulder. I aim to smite her chest area, though shoulder or stomach would suffice. Once we are both considerably off balance from the blow, I’ll reach my left leg out past her and plant my foot on the ground. From there I can force my blade into a skyward— or rather ceiling-ward— slash to knock her back. Our blades would still be in contact off to the side, which would assure her safety.

As soon as Ingus moved out of the way of her jab, Faris’s feet tensed and she began shifting her weight backwards. Lightly, she jumped back and away from his first attack, though because he was swinging upwards it did pose some threat of hitting her in the middle of her jump.

She landed in time to block his second attack and regained her footing enough to push back by the third horizontal swipe. He put more force into it and Faris found herself pushing the Brave Blade further to try to force him back. Faris was thrown off balance when Ingus’ weight suddenly shifted and he stepped forward.

After throwing her off balance, he proceeded to thrust upwards. Throwing her unbalanced weight, Faris ducked down, bending forward and to the side in order to avoid the attack while pulling her sword down with her.

With any luck, Ingus’ sword would continue in its intended direction. Hoping to take advantage of this, she leaned backwards and aimed a kick at his stomach, rolling over and back up on to her feet regardless of whether or not it hit.

“Heh, not bad,” she said, fairly impressed by his tactic.

He went through the trouble of lighting that fire by the side of the room near the entrance… What happens when that doesn’t help him see me? He might just light more. Either way…

That thought in mind, she proceeded to back away quickly, turning and going further into the room filled with rock formations and crevices. It was time to test out hide and seek with the new recruit.

baschtaejin:

Nodding in understanding, Basch sighed and said “There’s similar stories everywhere Faris. Pulse has changed, and it appears for the worst.” Stretching his neck, he stared straight ahead as if in a trance. “Both my parents died long ago, my father raised me and my brother for a time before he too passed. The highlands are a different place than it is down here. You hunt to survive, and you honour the old ways. My father was a blacksmith, forging weapons for a living. I guess that’s why I’m adept at handling most weapon types.” 

He shrugged and continued, “One night a pack of lobo struck into our camp, much deeper than they had before, and killed the herd of sheep… and a newborn child. I guess that was our first warning of the monster waves.”

Standing, he picked up the axe and tossed it around in his hand a few times, “What solidified the theory though, was when a behemoth attacked a travelling party of refugee’s. They normally kept to themselves in the highlands, only attacking if threatened. 10 refugee’s with barely 2 weapons wouldn’t count as a threat to a behemoth. My brother and I defended them, distracting the behemoth for them to get away…” He roared and swung the axe with such force it embedded itself in the stump, “it killed my brother. There’s no doubt in my mind now, Monsters are getting bolder, tougher, more brazen.”

Pulling the axe out of the stump, he sighed and said “It needs to stop before more innocents get hurt.” With a shrug, he turned to Faris and said “Well… should we continue or call it a day?” 

Another soldier, another sad story… Faris sighed, everyone who had come to Oerba, to Taejin’s Army, had been brought there by horrible circumstances. In a better world, none of them would have met.

But here we are, she thought to herself, working together, helping out, becoming a team… She was starting to get sentimental about it all.

“Sorry about your family,” she said, “looks like Oerba’s just full of orphans. But we’re all doing our part to try to stop more stories like ours from happening.”

She stretched and yawned widely at his offer to turn it in.

“Some rest sounds good but first I’d like to get some of this wood into to town by my place. Think I saw a couple places with some carts for transporting loads on the edge of town before we came here. Mind making a quick trip back to grab those?”

She began heading towards the direction they’d come from and looked over her shoulder to see if Basch would follow.

bartztaejin:

Bartz listened to her explanations and absent mindedly kept patting Boko’s head.

“To be honest, pretty much all I know about pirates is hearsay” he started to explain. “I mean, I never actually saw any of them burn towns or any of that. And I don’t think I ever met any either - well apart from you guys. But I guess you know the rumors. With the eye patches and stuff. Did any of your crew have eye patches? I forgot. But then again, other people have eye patches as well. And other people burn towns as well. Well, bad people, anyway.”

He paused for just a moment. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t do any of that pillaging and robbing and burning down towns when we were on your ship.” He hesitated for a moment before he added: “Or that other stuff pirates are said to do to helpless people, though I guess girls need to be more worried about that on general.” He had the sense to stop talking there but in his head added ‘Though, if it was you doing it I might have not minded that much…’ He hastily shook his head to get rid of that train of thought.

Boko either decided he had gotten enough attention or was dissatisfied with the half-hearted attention he had gotten. Anyway, he decided to stroll off and mingle with other chocobos in the stable. Bartz walked paced for a short while thinking and then sat down on a bale of straw. Looking up at her he continued.

“I don’t think I can really comment on the ‘feeling free’ since this is probably my first time being not free since I was a child. And even then, the worst my dad did most of the time was keeping me from getting myself killed.” he smiled unsure on how to continue. “So, no, I can’t say I understand, to be honest. Yeah, I can see how you’d feel free as a pirate but then I hardly know what it’s like otherwise. Maybe I should be grateful for it and appreciate it more. But to be truly free I’d dare say you really need to have no ties to anyone… which means being all on your own. Well, obviously as the captain of a bunch of pirates you could pretty much do whatever you wanted, for the most part. But then, a good captain if nothing else is responsible to his crew, isn’t he? Or she, in your case, of course. So you’re not entirely free. But of course, there are much more… not free ways to live. Like being here, with the army. Which raises the question why you decided to give up on it.”

He noticed he had started to ramble again and gestured to cover his mouth with his hand. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I’ve been talking and talking. Sometimes I just can’t stop myself.” He tried to smile apologetically.

“We had one bloke with an eye-patch,” Faris said and barked a laugh, “he was an interesting guy, little strange to be honest.”

“We didn’t generally do much pirating when we were running transportation, no sense in getting third parties like yourself in trouble or concerned,” she went on in answer to Bartz. The Syldra’s captain before her had done his best to minimize violence towards other humans, and Faris had always made it a goal to stick to that.

“S’alright, you’re not the first talkative person I’ve met here. Or in general.”

His rambling speech about freedom raised a lot of good questions which she decided to indulge. Despite his fumbling way of talking, Bartz was surprisingly easy to talk to about all of this.

“Did ye ever pass by Tycoon?” she began with a question, “That’s where I’m from. My family was aristocratic, lotta stuffy pretension and expectations getting held up like they’re what’s most important. I couldn’t stand it. Ran away when I was thirteen and that’s how I eventually ended up Captain.

“I didn’t exactly give it up, that life,” she glanced around self-consciously, pretending to be really interested in where Boko had gone to, “when I returned to Tycoon with my ship, that was the day it was attacked by monsters. The whole town went up and the ships in the nearby waters didn’t do much better.”

She shrugged in a “what-can-you-do?” kind of way to try to write it off, forcing her voice to remain casual, she continued explaining, “There wasn’t anywhere else to go. Both my homes were destroyed, if Tycoon ever really was my home. So I came here to help out with the monster epidemic goin’ on in Pulse.”

(Source: faristaejin)

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ingustaejin:

Ingus wasn’t surprised to see his attacks met with skilled blocks and forceful parries. When their blades finally locked, Ingus concentrated most of his strength into his legs, and made a show of his strength. Despite this, Ingus still found himself trying to maintain his foothold as he was pushed back. Once recovered, Ingus observed as Faris raised her blade above her head.

“…….”

Ingus probably saw that motion about a million times when fighting beasts. Whether small or tall, it seemed that every monster had raised their right paw in anticipation to come down on their prey. After a while, Ingus had developed a technique to counter it.

Once her blade becomes parallel to my ear, I’ll swipe it aside with my mid-shield and aim a shallow slash at her calf.

Ingus could hear the clatter of her sword on the ground, and could feel his blade slide across her skin—

“….!?!?”

Her blade came down fast. Very fast. Faster than anything he was used to. Not only that, but her reach was longer than he had anticipated. Between his surprise and deluded thoughts, Ingus hardly had time to react. What would have been a masterful counter, turned into a sort of awkward evasive maneuver. His shield tipped the edge of her blade, but couldn’t stop its course from slicing into his upper arm. To add to the failure, Ingus’ posture was still preparing to go offensive after contact. So he opened himself up further by cumbersomely swinging at her waist. The whole fiasco overloaded his senses, causing him to loose balance, and fall back on his butt.

“Ung….”

Speed seemed to be in her favor in this fight, she noted, not without a touch of smugness. Still Ingus had strong force behind his swings and blocks. That much was promising. She grinned, this was going to be an interesting one.

His swing at her waist was sloppy and she deflected it easily enough. That was when Ingus fell flat on his butt. She frowned.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that if ye want to keep up,” she said, giving him a light kick with her foot to prompt him into a standing position.

As he righted himself, she continued speaking, “You got to pay more attention to your feet and balance. It doesn’t matter how strong or fast or smart ye are if your opponent’s going to be able to knock you back like that.”

She took on a fighting stance again and paused as a signal to let him know the fight was resuming now.

“Don’t expect me to give you another free pass like that. Next time I’m not waitin’ to strike.”

That said, she took a couple of paces towards him and jabbed forward with her sword. It was a strange starting move and not one she would usually try but she wanted to test out Ingus’s response to multiple attacks and situations in battle. The jab was aimed straight at his abdomen, and she get her stance tense, ready to jump back if he took a swipe at her.

serahtaejin:

Serah smiled at Faris when she realized they were almost there, she hunched over her chocobo to stop the wind getting to her, Serah pulled her chocobo forcing it to slow; responding to Faris’s orders.

Serah watched Faris’s purple hair glisten in the sunlight, as she slowed down, “That sounds like a plan, I hope everybody is okay down there!” Serah said with a sigh of sadness.

Serah stared at the town, squinting her eyes to see if she could see anybody. The town looked terrible! “Have you seen any places you would like to set up camp? That would be central enough to help everybody quickly?” Serah gasped as the sun beamed into her eyes.

Serah’s eyes looked extremely worried, she wondered how the two of them were to help such a devastated place? She had to ignore all these thoughts, and focus on her mission, and devote herself to helping Faris.

“Okay lets go then!” Serah shouted with a weak tone to her voice. With this she pushed her chocobo forward, and they began to speed up once again.

Faris scanned the surrounding area, “It’s hard to tell what a good spot might be from here. Let’s try to do a lap around the perimeter to find a good spot.”

She sped up as well, and followed just a little bit behind and to the right of Serah. They ran their chocobos in a curving trail around the perimeter of the town, making sure to stay out of harm’s way while they skimmed the area for an appropriate space. Looking forward, the former pirate noticed the way the mountains north of the town were staggered.

Faris called ahead to Serah, “We should try over by those mountains! They might provide some extra shelter!”

With that goal in mind, she sped up and pulled alongside Serah. She asked the pink-haired medic a question, “Aside from shelter, what else do you think we should look for in a good spot for the camp?”

The morning air was brisk now, and the screams from the town echoed distantly as they made their way around the danger zone. Faris gritted her teeth. All of her instincts made her want to run crashing into the battlefield. It was through sheer force of will that she reminded herself over and over again that her job was not to take part in the main fighting, she and Serah were here to find a safe place and help the people in need.

(Source: faristaejin)

bartztaejin:

She seemed satisfied with his explanation and started to pace through the the stables. And he couldn’t stop himself from watching her, even when Boko apparently started to feel neglected and nudged him slightly all he did was pet the birds head to satisfy him not taking an eye of the woman in front of him.

She turned back to him and inquired what he remembered about their mutual journey from before. “Uhm, that’s bee quite a while…” he murmured and began mimicking her scratching his own stubbly chin. “Well, I think we set sail somewhere around… Wutai? Maybe? No, wait, I think I’d have remembered if it was Wutai… uhm, Figaro? And then heading for… Crescent? I’m not sure, I think we headed for some island or other because I seem to recall I had to get Boko on another ship soon afterwards. But why would I head for an island with Boko?”

He paused and stared at the ceiling for a while trying to recall the events surrounding one of his rare travels by sea. “It might be were just making a stop on the way to the Yaschas Massif or so… Does that sound reasonable? I’m kind of lousy when it comes to geography.” He grinned slightly selfconscious.

“Anyway, you seemed pretty civiliced for a bunch of pirates, if I dare say so. Is all that pillaging and burning towns just a bad rumor about them… you… ?”

“We did a lot of business around Wutai,” she said, “great weapons made up in those parts. Good trade. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where we were takin’ ye.”

She rubbed her neck sheepishly at that and sort of half met his eyes, “Glad we made a good impression but it wouldn’t be fair for me to let you think we were much better than your standard pirates.”

She glanced at his bird thoughtfully. Hm, how to put it…

“Guess ye could say, it’s about breaking the rules, but-… Hnn, s’about more than that too,” she frowned thoughtfully, “we mostly took from rich ships and we didn’t burn towns or anything like that. To me being a pirate always meant being free.”

She glanced away nervously.

“If that makes sense.”

It was weird talking about her piracy with Bartz. Unlike other soldiers, he already knew basically upon meeting her what her past was kind of like. But the Faris from the Syldra made a strange comparison when held up to the Faris from Oerba. Trying to reconcile the two of them was always awkward and difficult. Bartz was more aware of those sides of her than anyone, the only person to have really seen them both (though, in a way  so had Zack).

(Source: faristaejin)

ingustaejin:

Ingus nodded, and trained his eyes on the captain.

Based on her stance, and weapon, it is reasonable for me to assume that she will be very light on her feet. Given that this area strictly limits movement, one might assume that I would have the upper hand. Judging by the numerous factors that put her above me, I’ll just go ahead and deny that observation.

Ingus slid his half-shield onto his wrist, and gripped the hilt of his blade with both hands. In most fights, given a lot of room, the intensity starts off mild and slowly rises to a pinnacle of attacking. But, in an area as this, any sort of physical aggression requires a certain amount of ferocity from the start.

I’ll start off by declaring a light source. I’ll place it behind me, so that I can see her figure clearly, and blacken my own at the same time. From there I’ll start low. I need to make sure all of my attacks end with a slash going to the right, so that the shield on my left arm can cover any openings that I’d yield. 

Happy with his deductions, Ingus didn’t hesitate a moment longer. He whipped one hand back, blasted a ball of fire into the ground behind  him, brought his hand back to the handle, and lunged forward at Faris. Ingus kept his knee’s bent, and body condensed, as to decrease his hit frame and increase his defensive capabilities. Once in a satisfying range, Ingus opened up with an oblique slash, aimed to start at her right hip and end at her left shoulder. (Your left/right, not my left/right.) After another step, Ingus dug his left foot into the ground, pivoted his wrist, and shifted all of his body weight into his sword.

Faris grinned as he readied his own fighting stance. At least he wasn’t backing down from her challenge. A small part of her had been just a bit concerned he would decline the battle on account of not wanting to fight his captain or just severely misplaced chivalry. Now she just hoped he’d follow through and give her a good fight.

His first move was to cast a fire behind him, adding some light to the cavern they had found themselves in. Faris was pleased to see he was already taking her advice to rely on all skills available, including her magic.

That was when Ingus bunched himself up before springing forward at her. It looked like defense would be to his advantage between the shield and his more cautious fighting style. But she could get around that.

As the attack came, Faris instinctively brought her sword up in her right hand to block it. She reinforced her arm and girded her body against the strength of the blow, absorbing the force in her stance.

She was pleased with the strength behind that attack, and she grinned as she pushed him back. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a matter of cutting down her opponent after all. The idea was to come at Ingus with whatever she could to see what he was made of.

After pushing Ingus back she brought the Brave Blade up and then down in a vertical slash aimed at his left shoulder. While swinging with her right hand, her left hand reached over to a nearby rock formation and she placed it flat against the rock, ready to use that arm to push more force into her body.

cloudtaejin:

zacktaejin:

tifataejin:

Honestly, the amount of embarrassment Tifa felt was extraordinary. She’d never forgotten something as important as her glove before. But that’s what happens when you have then hooked into your belt. What’s worse is that she didn’t even notice it until this morning! She’d gotten up, intending on perhaps training, or if she was lucky, sparring with someone! Surely someone would be available. But lo and behold, she couldn’t find her other glove. 

And that’s how Tifa found herself aboard an airship, on her hands and knees, hidden behind some seats. Where was that darn, aha! She’s found it! Sighing in relief, the young martial artist had just secured her glove on when she heard someone enter followed by some mechanical sounds.

“O-Oi! I’m still on….?” Whoa, wait. That person most certainly wasn’t one of the standard pilots….

“Right on time Cloud” Zack smiled as he tossed his cards on the ground. He was about to probably lose a good amount of gil with the hand he had. He picked himself up and heard the familiar sound of an airship starting up. Looks like Faris is done on his end.

He followed Cloud to the hanger. It seems like so far, the blonde’s plan was going well. At this rate, they’d be in Midgar in no time. Zack almost wished that something would happen so they couldn’t go, but if he didn’t know, he might come to regret it.

Cloud entered the ship and awaited for Zack to enter right before closing the doors and locking them to make sure there were no further interruptions. He looked around and was glad to see that the airship was empty and with no guards.

“Ok, Zack you go see if Faris is fine up in the front. I’m going to take a look around and make sure things are fine in here. Try not to leave Faris for now, it will make it easier for me to distinguish if there’s someone else on the ship by hearing other footsteps.” The blonde told Zack right before heading towards the back of the airship.

Although Cloud was showing a serious expression on his face as if this was one of the mandatory missions that the commander would send them on, he was filled with excitement on the inside, nothing would be stopping them any time soon and that was the best feeling to him at the moment. 

He opened a door and entered a room, there were many places that other guards could possibly either be hiding or sleeping and avoiding getting in trouble by higher ranking officers. That’s when he heard someone walking above him. He quickly, but quietly, went up the stairs and waited in a room towards where the footsteps were heading.

“Don’t move or el……..” Cloud stopped and his eyes widened. He only expected to see casual guards on a ship like this, not the person he was looking at right now. “T-Tifa? What are you doing here?!” he asked surprised.

Faris made a noise of recognition in response to Cloud’s words even though he was mostly addressing Zack. As Cloud left the room she resumed her task of readying the airship for take off (while simultaneously giving herself a crash course in piloting the thing). She recognized the lever that would likely control throttle power for take off (or whatever the terms for it was when out of the water) but she didn’t really want to touch that until it was time.

Feeling a little jumpy with all the excitement, she paused in her work long enough to ask her companion, “You feelin’ alright? Ye seem a little tense.”

She continued working on the controls while he replied. Eventually, she felt confident enough that there wasn’t anything left to figure out before winging it. From somewhere back in the airship it sounded like Cloud was moving around or something.

Quickly addressing Zack, she said, “Ye better take a seat and buckle in.”

She reached over to the communication system and flipped it on before speaking to ship at large, “Oi! Cloud! We’re ready up here! Hold on to something or get down here stat ‘cause I’m takin’ her up!”

That said she made some final adjustments to the controls before reaching for the lever. While doing this she had already begun opening the airship port to the sky to allow them to take off. As she moved the lever forward the ship rumbled and gave a great lurch forward. Concentrating and trying to maintain control, Faris pushed it more steadily and the ship began rising. Her other hand worked at the wheel and clumsily she began steering them out into the open air.