Heart of the Warrior

Chapter 2 - The Evaluation

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Captain Strife's complete take-over of the Bodhum regiment had proceeded as smoothly as Captain Matsuki intended; Lightning, however, was not quite as convinced. True, it had been two weeks since Matsuki officially retired and nothing serious had happened during that time but at least Matsuki would associate himself with the rest of the regiment! Captain Strife simply sat in his office doing the mountains of paperwork that Captain Matsuki dreaded doing; that was something else she had in common with her former Captain: she hated the mounds of paperwork sitting in her cubicle, where she sat rubbing the metaphorical cheese grater against her forehead. As she pulled up yet another report that had to be completed and filed, a knock on her cubicle caused her to turn.

"Pardon me Sergeant Farron," said the mousy brown head of Private Flynn "Captain Strife has called for the entire regiment to gather outside..." she didn't have a chance to finish as Lightning hurried out of the tiny space (glad of a distraction from the arduous paperwork).

Lightning and Private Flynn filed out of the building, into the warm air of the courtyard and joined with the rest of the regiment, standing at attention in orderly rows. Lightning had done her best to join as close as she could to Lieutenant Amodar.

"Lieutenant?" she whispered sharply as Captain Strife marched out of the building and stood at attention. "What's going on?" "

"Beats me. Hang on, what the hell is that?" he wondered as a loud humming began emanating from the sky. Lightning turned to find a large, bird-shaped airship emerged from the clouds and began its rapid descent.

"Amodar!" barked Cloud loudly over the roaring wind (Amodar snapped to attention), "That's a Sanctum battle-cruiser, correct?" he asked; the wind suddenly died and the engines onboard the airship began to die.

"Yes sir that would be the Palamecia if I'm not mistaken" replied Amodar. Cloud grunted as he furrowed his eyebrows.

"Sir, what in the world is PSICOM doing here?" asked Lightning curiously, her own eyebrows narrowed.

"I'm not sure," replied Cloud slowly and turned to the two of them "But I'm going to find out. Come on, the both of you with me" he ordered and the three of them set off for the airship.

The airship's hatch opened with the hiss of compressed air and several soldiers tromped out of the ship before snapping to attention, their rifles pointed skyward. As the trio halted before them, a woman with long blonde hair, wearing half-rim glasses and clad in a forest green greatcoat, and wrapped around her shoulder were two spiraling blue stripes.

"Good day Captain Strife" she said in a poisonously smooth voice.

"We received your message so suddenly that I couldn't properly ask you," Cloud's voice steady and polite before taking a rather drastic turn as he asked rudely "Who the hell are you?"

"I am Lieutenant Colonel Jihl Nabaat of the Public Security and Intelligence Command, Captain" she replied calmly though her eyes shot venomous looks.

"May I ask what PSICOM is doing here, in Bodhum?"

"Under Sanctum orders, your regiment is going to be subject to a weeklong inspection in order for the higher-ups to appropriately evaluate how effectively the regiment is being led" replied Nabaat waving three sheets of paper before them. Lightning's eyebrows rose incredulously: a PSICOM evaluation of a Guardian Corps regiment?!