Alitia: Hellfire and Blizzard

II: Burning at Both Ends

Hours after the rest of the students of Alitia had returned to their rooms for the night, Luce stood in the training hall with her fists raised at a stuffed dummy. She didn't practice her hand to hand skills as often as she could have, but tonight, she was more in the mood for that than swinging her sword around. Luce dished out a quick flurry of punches, and the dummy swayed but did not fall over entirely. After Luce dealt out one last punch to the doll's chin, she let out a sigh and leaned her head back. Her hair was tied into a small ponytail at the base of her neck, having grown long enough for that at some point in the last few weeks. Luce really needed to cut it off again, but she could barely find the time for anything these days. It felt like everything happened constantly, and she could barely find the time to breathe in the midst of the world tearing her in a thousand different directions. 

"I had a feeling I would find you here."

Luce snapped out of her haze at the sound of Michaela's voice near the doorway. Sure enough, the professor was leaning against the wall, a small and almost sad smile on her face as she watched Luce work. "Professor Apollo," Luce greeted simply. "Is something the matter? Do you need me for anything?" She approached the workbench where she had set her water bottle and took a hefty swig, wiping at her mouth with the back of her mouth to free it of residual droplets. 

"I just wanted to come by and check on you," Michaela replied as she pushed away from the wall. "I know a lot has been happening recently, and I thought coming to talk to you about it was the best thing I could do with my time tonight." She paused, watching Luce for a few heavy seconds as the girl looked away from her. "How have things been going? I understand you've been under a lot of pressure recently."

"That doesn't even begin to describe it," Luce snorted with a shake of her head. "I really thought everything would finally calm down again after we finished the final battle on Etruna, but we barely had the chance to breathe before things started getting worse in a whole new way. I shouldn't have thought we would have the chance to rest. Clearly that was my mistake."

"I don't think you should hold it against yourself," Michaela said. "You had no idea it was going to end that way, and even if you could have known, I don't think that would have changed much. It sounds to me like the queen of Pyre was always planning on doing something like this. I heard from Zylphia that Minerva has been talking a lot about her strange activities out of late."

Luce was halfway tempted to ask Michaela when she had come to be on first name terms with the head teachers of the Millennium Six, but she pushed the thought out of her head and sighed instead. "I don't know what to do about any of this," she confessed. "My team is doing its best to keep itself together, but it's a lot easier said than done when it feels like the world has been working against us for so long." Michaela nodded, and Luce took a seat on the bench, realizing that she wouldn't be getting any other training in for a while to come. Michaela joined her, and Luce began to tap her foot against the ground. "If you don't mind my asking... What do you know about the queen of Pyre? Is there anything we should know before we try to defeat her?"

Michaela let out a humorless laugh. "I shouldn't be shocked to hear that you're going to try and defeat her, and yet, I'm a bit surprised you're willing to be that forward with it so soon," she remarked. "Well... I can tell you that Pyre is a planet of ruthless strength. Every person there is expected to fend for themselves as soon as they are old enough to do so."

"So it's like Igni," Luce concluded, and that was all she really needed to hear. If Pyre had anything in common with Igni, then she could say without a shadow of a doubt that this war was bound to happen sooner or later. Whether Pyre was overthrown on its own or tried to attack another planet, it was bound to end this way. Planets like that could never keep to themselves long enough to stay out of trouble.