The World's Worst SOLDIER: Chapter 2
"Today, we're going to start with target practice!" Zack informed me cheerfully as we walked down one of Shinra's dark, metal hallways that always seemed oppressive no matter how much light there was. Perhaps it was just the feeling of their terrible, oppressive souls - but I shouldn't be thinking about that here. Might get myself in trouble.
"With a gun?" I asked. "That sounds dangerous."
"Well, yeah," Zack began, but was cut off as there was a loud clattering sound, and a young man (Zack's age) climbed out of a boarded-up service door of some sort, coughing. He was in a SOLDIER uniform, like Zack, but it had plenty of dust. I just stared at him.
"Hey guys," said the new person. "I was just... exploring."
"Hey Kunsel!" Zack, replied, brightly - like this wasn't even vaguely out of the ordinary. I really hoped there wasn't any more SOLDIERs hiding down there, ready to jump out, like ants from an ant nest.
I sneezed (I was allergic to dust). "Is everyone in SOLDIER crazy?"
"Oh, there's way worse. We're the most normal ones," Kunsel informed me. "You guys are off to the shooting range, right?"
Zack nodded. "We sure are!"
"What on earth were you doing?" I asked.
"I was spying on Lazard," Kunsel explained, "since he seemed really on edge. He's arguing with some Turks, which I figured I need to keep an eye on. Gotta protect the director, in case anything goes down."
"I don't think the Turks would fistfight him," objected Zack. "We're all friends here!"
Kunsel raised an eyebrow. "Right. I guess I'll see you later, Zack, since you're busy." And then he was off.
As it turned out, I was no good at shooting. At all.
"You hit the target... once. On the edge."
No matter how much I shot at it or aimed through a sight, I always seemed to be pointing it wrong. Perhaps it was my inability to visually perceive depth. I thought that was most likely - alongside my poor coordination, it made me terrible at most physical activities. Especially ones that involved aim. Or throwing things. "Please don't make me use throwable weapons, next, Zack. I'll die."
"Okay, fine. It doesn't look like aim is your thing, anyway."
As we walked over to the combat-sims and sparring grounds, where groups of SOLDIERs practiced basic stances with various weapons, I found myself frowning at the raw youth of these various recruits. Like Zack, many of them couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. Children, preparing for war. I still didn't think of myself as any other than a child, especially as I was still in school, but I was still technically an adult. I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise that Shinra would gladly send minors into battle and recruit impressionable young people, but it was still worrying. This was the kind of thing that went unchecked in the biggest civilisation on Gaia?
"Hey, how old are you, Zack? You can't have been here for that long, right?"
"I'm fifteen," Zack told me. "SOLDIER third class! And I've already been with Shinra for two years, actually, so I'm way good at this."
He joined at thirteen? That was insane. And they just agreed with it? Probably because he was tall, and strong enough, but damn. I thought Wutai beginning to recruit younger people was on the side of unethical - they had no choice though! Shinra had their pick of every spineless, butt-licking Midgar citizen among the millions! Instead they had to pick brainwashed, spineless, butt-licking children. Okay, that was probably unfair on the kids - their environment had placed false trust in the uncaring corporate mass that was Shinra through growing up in the embrace of their disgusting propaganda. But if the adult citizens of Midgar liked their so-called 'Progress' so much, they should be the ones to defend it. "That's awful," I said.
"Don't worry, you'll catch up!"
Poor kid. I guess growing up surrounded by lies and in a place that wasn't home hurt the both of us, in ways he clearly didn't understand yet. At this point, I almost felt like I didn't want him to understand that Shinra were the bad guys. He was so happy here, with his comrades. I'd seen him smile and wave to every other guy that passed, even if they were covered with skull tattoos and looked like they were about to smash someone's face in. And they smiled back. It was strange, and yet, really sweet.
Zack was carrying a sword around today - one that seemed both clunky and too small for him at the same time. It was huge, but not very elegant or dramatic, like the propaganda you saw on TV. I guess I always ended up thinking about the kind of sword Sephiroth carried, because it was pretty damned cool. I'd seen plenty of battle scenes where everyone else looked slow and clumsy as he moved past them. I watched a video on a small motivation screen attacked to one of the walls on the sparring ground, stopping, and Zack stopped with me - it was promoting Sephiroth in battle, fighting with ethereal grace.
"That's what a SOLDIER first class looks like," Zack told me. "And someday, I'm going to be one."
Zack? A cold, efficient killer? I couldn't imagine it. I supposed I didn't know him very well yet, though.
I was issued with a less dangerous sword than Zack's, and then ushered into a combat simulator by a bunch of its attendants. I got an earpiece, so I could talk to those outside and so that Zack, for some reason, could give instruction. I wasn't sure I trusted Zack to be an expert in teaching combat, but there we were. They weren't going to dispatch anyone more important for a mistake, and it was better Zack than someone who would love killing for the sake of it and was old enough to learn better.
From the cool, glowing room with lights around the tiles on its floor, I was plunged into a holographic grassland where flowers were recreated in miniscule detail, the sounds of insects greeting me from surrounding shrubs. It seemed to me to be a typical day, with clouds hanging low in an overcast sky. "Well, this isn't too bad."
"We're gonna send the first one at you soon!" Zack exclaimed cheerfully from the little speaker in my ear.
I assumed the stance I'd been taught - but never actually called to use in any sort of battle situation.
Zack's voice paused for a second, then said, "It's not the worst I've ever seen, at least you have balance. Have you ever fought anything before?"
"Nope," I said. "I've only been taught to fight as like, a for-show sport thing. So I'm going to just try and chop."
The sword didn't actually seem that heavy to me, but my forearms ached. It was definitely heavier than the practice swords they'd made me use when I was younger. I could hold the weight, but I didn't know how I was going to having to swing it around.
My opponent was a sort of metal floating thing. That didn't make a lot of sense to me in assessing my combat abilities, because I didn't think I'd be facing many Shinra drones if they did force me to fight something. I didn't really want to think about what I would be fighting, though.
It buzzed towards me, and then raised its little gun arms. "Guns???" I exclaimed.
"Yeah. SOLDIERs fight guns with swords. Because we're supernaturally enhanced."
"When does the supernatural enhancement kick in? I don't think I'm done cooking yet! How does that even work?"
I reached out with my sword and started trying to slice it, while it dodged with ease, not trying to shoot yet. Making a frustrated sound, I reached up and tried to heft the sword at it again. The sword was so heavy, so hard to swing!
It finally delivered the ultimate blow, and shot me multiple times, "killing" me.
"...huh," said Zack. "You might need to work on swordfighting, but um. Maybe you won't be completely hopeless once you learn?"
"Thanks for the positivity," I replied drily, but he just responded with a jovial "You're welcome!" as if he'd taken it in complete sincerity.
I'd never been good at sport, but I had to admit this was all a little depressing. I'd hoped I'd be good at something, but I failed myself again and again. True, I'd always known my strengths lay in other places, but it was still pretty demoralising.
"What about using materia?" I asked Zack as I walked out of the combat sim and followed him down the hall to go for lunch.
"Sorry, Isabel. We don't give materia to Wutaian SOLDIERs, unless we've thoroughly vetted them first."
I frowned, fishing in my pocket and bringing out a little materia, about the size of a marble - shifting green in colour, a little like a flickering candle flame was deep inside. "How about this one?"
"Normal materia is different. That one can't really do any damage to anything, it's only good for starting a campfire or something. Military grade materia is way bigger, more powerful, and more expensive." Zack showed me a larger orb of materia - its diameter longer than my palm. "This one is a fire materia, too, but much stronger."
I guessed that made sense. Wouldn't want the general public having too much power, right? Then they could fight back. "How many Wutaians are in the military?"
"Hmm... you'd be the only Wutaian SOLDIER. The rest are just security officers and stuff."
Oh, great. I was committing the ultimate betrayal of my parents' valiant homeland.
"What's your story, anyway?" Zack asked me, curious. "Your records say you're from the islands near Round. Can't say I've ever met anyone else from there, and you also say you're Wutaian."
"My dad's from really far south Wutai, but his parents moved there from Cosmo Canyon, and my mum is from the north, near the capital of Wutai. They moved to Round when the war started, since they didn't want to be killed or under fire."
Maybe I shouldn't be so judgemental towards the Wutaians in Midgar. It wasn't their fault they were here - perhaps their parents had taken them here and they didn't have the money to leave. Or like me, they hadn't had the spine to drop out of the school that would give them a head start into the exclusive career they wanted - a school deeply within Shinra's control. I could hate them for being in the military, though, right? They'd chosen this. I hadn't. Maybe I couldn't convince myself to hate anyone, no matter how unjust it was to work for Shinra. Were my parents cowards for sending me to a Shinra school, moving away from Wutai and declining to fight Shinra? I didn't think so. There would definitely be people who would think they were, though, who were currently risking life and limb for their communities as we spoke. What right did I have to argue with other people here? I hadn't demanded to go back to Wutai, or even to stay out of Shinra's reach, even. What kind of Wutaian was I? Anything I said or did here against them was mere hypocrisy, when despite my protests I'd been as happy as ever to go along with whatever they said.
"Isabel? Isabel!" Zack was saying. "Wake up!"
"Sorry, thinking too loud," I sighed. "I couldn't hear you."
Zack scratched his head. Perhaps he didn't know the sensation because he was normal, or perhaps he just didn't know it because he'd never had a thought long enough for it to be a problem. Surprisingly, though, I found him to be not that bad. He was just a teenager, after all. If I saw a First Class SOLDIER, though, I'd punch them. They had no defense from me.
"I asked you what the Round Islands are like."
I described them to him - from the warmer, temperate southern islands, including the famous very round island, to the harsher northern ones with their icy winters and needle-leafed trees. I spoke of the kind of tea they made there, and all the boats in the harbour. Of the boat races in the summer; of swimming in the coves and in an indoor pool on one of the islands. I told him how it was always a surprise when someone new came, a big event when trading ships came with our orders.
"You know, you sound like you're more from there than from Wutai," Zack said, thoughtfully. "If it's the place you grew up, that's really the kind of people you are. Maybe we can convince them to let you have some materia?"
"I am from Wutai." It came out almost angrily, and Zack looked taken aback. "I'm sorry. I just... it doesn't matter."
Zack shrugged. "Okay, then."
Kunsel joined us for lunch, as I picked hesitantly from the bland-looking rations. What was this? Optimised cat food? I filled a plate, though, I was starving. Nowhere near as piled high as the two proper SOLDIERs', though.
It tasted kind of fine: there was some seasoning, which was better than I expected. Still, it wasn't exactly gourmet dinner. The protein, whatever it was, had no texture (honestly a relief), and the vegetable something just tasted like seaweed. All in all, it wasn't bad, but seemed more like a snack in the type of content offered than an actual meal. "Isn't there a sandwich or something?"
"I guess you could request it," Kunsel suggested. "How did the assessments go?"
"You'd have to ask expert Zack."
Expert Zack, newly named, brightened as his opinion was called for. "I don't think I've ever seen a candidate perform worse, and everyone else agreed!"
Kunsel winced. "Not the best."
"It's their fault," I pointed out. "I would never have been here if they hadn't messed up and caused me to be one of their valuable experiments in the first place."
That night, I was exhausted. Zack and Kunsel left after lunch to actually do their jobs, and I was stuck with some instructor who made me do the same 3 positions over and over again holding a wooden sword and micromanaging everything about the way I was standing. Then I'd mess it up again and the instructor would mutter something about paychecks and useless meatheads. I got so annoyed with the instructor I started deliberately doing the wrong thing until I was dismissed to bed, and lay there, thinking about it all. It was a dark cell of a room, windowless and outfitted with a simple metal bedframe and desk.
A mistake had destroyed my dreams, and put me into the hands of the very organisation I would see to destroy. They would pay for this... I hoped? My ability to "make them pay" didn't seem very promising.
As I drifted into the land of dreams, I vaguely thought I could hear whispers. Sounds like the stars, a language I couldn't understand. Well, it was probably nothing.
