Heart of the Warrior

Chapter 4 - The Purge at Hanging Edge

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The train moved swiftly and silently, like a great snake of doom; Lightning sat in her seat, clad in the hooded Purge Robe they'd forced on her, patiently awaiting her moment to strike. Matsuki was gone, Amodar was gone, even Cloud was gone; now it was just her and all of her training in order to survive. Her eyes burned with anger and determination: she was after the Fal'Cie Anima, nothing else mattered and she would take down anything that got in her way. The doors to the connecting car slid open the hiss of releasing compressed air and the PSICOM soldier, wielding his standard machine gun, marched into the car like a gestapo. Lightning eyed him as he pointed his gun in the faces of the frightful passengers, her warrior's instinct itching to get her gunblade back and bury bullets into his body.

The man to her right turned to her and whispered "Are you serious?"

"Be quiet!" Lightning hissed, keeping her mind clear and focused.

The man glanced over at the guard and then whispered back "Best of luck."

Lightning grunted a soft 'humph'; luck had nothing to do with skill. The train jerked with a sudden, stomach wrenching lurch, jerking the passengers like ragdolls and causing the guard to stumble; Lightning's eyes narrowed: this was her chance to strike. On her feet and making a mad dash towards the stupefied guard, Lightning flew into the air grabbing the guard by his helmet and twisted violently. As the guard fell to the ground (and Lightning returned to it), she quickly smashed the heel of her boot onto the mechanism that controlled the lock of the cuffs bind all prisoners hands (her own falling away freely).

The door slid open with another airy hiss and two more PSICOM soldiers charged in, one of them roared "FREEZE" although the rhetorical statement was drowned in a hail of gunfire. Lightning, swiftly slipping out of her Purge Robe, used it's distraction to outmaneuver the lowly grunts, get underneath them and quickly take the first out with a powerful kick to the neck, and filled her left hand with pain as she knocked away the second guard's gun and plowed her fist into his face, dropping like a stone.

Throwing herself against the corner, momentarily catching her breath, Lightning dove back into chaos as she charged into the next car, squeezing the trigger of the stolen machine gun and letting loose a barrage of bullets. The soldiers dived behind cover, evading her shots, before one of them charged; twisting into a masterful spin, Lightning sharply planted her boot into the throat of the charging soldier. As her mighty kick brought the soldier crashing back down, Lightning opened fire on the unsuspecting second; snapping her fingers and activating her manadrive, Lightning pushed off, her Grav-Con unit making her lighter than air. Slamming her full weight onto the chest of a soldier (attempting to sneak up on her) and taking hold of his unused gun, Lightning pushed off again, spinning in midair, shooting three-hundred sixty degrees and killing all soldiers that approached.

Landing like a cat and dropping the exhausted gun, the low rumble of numerous footsteps, too unorganized to be more soldiers, met Lightning's ears. As she found the soldier she'd surrendered her weapon to, Lightning turned slightly catching the black-man in the green bush pilot running up to her with a stolen machine gun in his hand and two rocket launchers crisscrossing his back and followed by civilians wielding similar weapons.

"They all want to fight!" he reported with much surprise in his voice.

"Good for them" said Lightning uncaring, holding Blazefire across her chest. Running over and crashing her shoulder into one of the emergency exits, breaking it open with a loud thud, Lightning got full blast of the purge location: the abandoned city of Hanging Edge. Its buildings emitted an eerie green light that shrouded the whole place in an envelope of green mist; far below, beyond the maze of highroads and bridges, Lightning could clearly make out a massive firefight going on between PSICOM and some unknown faction. Snapping her attention forward, Lightning found several oncoming PSICOM air-mechs coming in fast dead ahead.