Teal galloped down the hallway until she struck an obstacle and fell to the floor with an 'oof!', she looked up at what she had run into and realised that it wasn't a what, it was a who, and that who happened to be Cherry.
"Hey! What's the big- Oh hi," The girl peered at Teal through her fringe, "Teal right?" She nodded and Cherry extended a hand to help her up, "What did you crash into me for? Someone chasing you?" She held the blue haired girl by her shoulders and looked over them to check for any potential attackers, Teal shook her head and giggled.
"I just wasn't looking where I was going that's all."
"Oh, well, where are the rest of them?" Teal hummed to ask who she was referring to, "Your team?" Teal thought for a moment, as though she actually didn't know where they were, then looked back up at Cherry and grinned.
"They're getting dressed! I think." Cherry laughed and turned to look down the corridor they were stood in; when she saw that there was no one there she huffed in annoyance and turned back to Teal.
"Well my thoughtful teammates have left without us, so would you like to join me for breakfast?" She was answered with a nod and the two headed off towards the enticing smells of bacon and fresh bread.
***
"The last time she slept properly, she lost one of the most important people in her life."
Wynter didn't move, she was trying to process the gravity contained within the words Rain had just said. The purple haired girl sleepily closed her eyes momentarily as a single tear slipped down her cheek, it hurt to think about, but Rain knew that she deserved to know.
"What... What happened?" Wynter's green eyes were wide with both sympathy and curiosity, by that time, Navi had stirred and was facing the two from her hammock with her head resting on her arm. Rain greeted her then sighed and spoke in a solemn voice.
"Teal and I never attended a training academy like Signal, instead, we were part of something called 'Project Thunder', we had both been there as long as we can remember, perhaps longer."
"'Project Thunder'?"
"They never told us much, but I managed to overhear it was some sort of secret experiment commissioned by the military."
"The military?!"
"Yes, apparently we were the first of a new type of super Soldier'" Rain let out a bitter chuckle, "they said we should have been honoured, they said we were the start of a new generation, it didn't feel like that."
"Did they treat you badly?" Navi shot Wynter a small glare, warning her not to pry too much.
"Not at first, we were so young, so the nurses tried to give us the best life they could in between all the training and tests." She paused and wiped another tear from her face, "Then one day, when we were about 10, the nurses and doctors were replaced with people in long white coats, they brought soldiers with them, and I remember their eyes being so cold, so... lifeless. It scared me." Wynter moved from her bed to sit beside the tall girl, who was hunched over on hers. "According to one of them, we were taking too long to produce favourable results, and so they had no choice but to take over the research."
Rain was visibly shaking by that point, and Wynter took to rubbing comforting circles on the girl's back as she continued, "After that, conditions got very bad very fast, the training was torture, and Teal got weaker and weaker, she just couldn't keep up, which led to punishment after punishment. Every night she'd be thrown into the cell we slept in hours after we had been permitted to sleep, and her eyes would be red from crying. Every. Night."
"What did they do to her?"
"She never said, but we respected that, and as we spent most of the night trying to comfort her, to get her to sleep, we could see the bruises and scratches on her arms and legs."
"You said it was just you and Teal, why 'we'?" Rain looked at Wynter and did her best not to glare at the girl.
"I never said that," She averted her gaze to the floor as Wynter's expression became apologetic; "There were three of us, me, Teal, and Fulgur. He was their favourite, he was stronger and therefore a more capable test subject, we were constantly compared with him, and he hated it. One time, during training, Teal collapsed, she was too weak to continue, the officers were about to beat her into getting up when Fulgur stepped between them and Teal, he refused to move and kept yelling that they weren't going to touch her without going through him first."
"That night, Teal was permitted to sleep at the same time as us, the officers hadn't done anything for the rest of the day, and we all slept happily, thinking that we'd finally get some respect for taking a stand, oh how naïve we were."
Wynter and Navi exchanged worried looks, dreading what they were about to hear next. "Out of the three of us that went to sleep, only Teal and I were in that cell when we woke. Fulgur was nowhere to be found, and the staff ignored our demands to know where he was, they acted as though they'd never heard the name before in their lives, despite being the ones who gave us these names, they had given us everything, our symbols, identities, hell, I'm willing to bet they had a hand in our Semblances too."
"It was hasty of us to assume that the worst had happened, but we couldn't stop ourselves, our fears were confirmed a few days later, when one of the staff told us that he'd been punished severely for his act of defiance, they- they said." She sniffed as more tears flowed from her eyes, then she looked to the window, and Navi became genuinely afraid of the fire she saw in them.
"They said, soldiers who can't follow orders are sentenced with desertion, that is the way things are.' Teal never slept properly after that, she blamed herself for his death, and said that if she hadn't been asleep, then she could have defended him, so now she doesn't even close her eyes until everyone in the room is sleeping, she's scared it will happen again."
All three girls were in tears when Rain finished, they would never had believed that their perpetually happy teammate had such a tragic past, and if she hadn't have been there herself, Rain wouldn't have either.
After a while, Wynter finally stood and turned to the others with a smile on her face, which surprised them, "Well it's no good sitting here and moping, she needs us to be happy." Navi and Rain silently agreed, and stood to dress. When each girl was in their uniform they left that dorm room for the dining hall, smiling for their blue haired companion.
When they got there the hall was packed with students, and the smell of food was making their stomachs growl. Rain spotted Teal sat by the windows with team BRCH, a beaming smile on her face,and the three of them manoeuvred towards them. After quick greetings they left and returned a few minutes later holding plates piled high with food.
"So this is where you disappeared to." Wynter spoke as she took a seat beside Teal, who shrugged as she giggled sheepishly, a half-eaten bread roll in her hands, as she ate she listened to the various conversations taking place at the table, occasionally partaking in-between mouthfuls of cereal.
One such conversation turned into a heated debate between every member at the table about which was better out of waffles or pancakes; in fact the group were so absorbed that they hardly noticed the call for lessons. It wasn't until Navi, who had mostly been sidelining the whole thing, realised people were leaving that the result was left at 'undecided' and the eight of them made their way to their first lessons.
***
"Pretty bad storm huh?" Buck and the rest of his team had just joined Wynter, Navi and Rain in the library, the afternoon had originally been reserved for a field trip into the forest of Forever Fall, but so far the weather had been relentless, and the professor had decided to reschedule to another day, leaving the entire class with free time. Since there was nowhere else to go, they had come here.
Wynter looked up from her book for the first time in an hour to respond with a nod, she let her eyes pass over everyone present until they widened in horror. "Where's Teal?" She expected Rain to be alarmed, but the girl didn't even take her eyes off the page as she calmly answered the question.
"She'll be outside, I wouldn't worry about her." It was Navi's turn to be confused, she'd seen how protective Rain had been back at the ruins during initiation, how could she be so nonchalant right now? Her thoughts were interrupted by the scraping of a chair on stone as Wynter stood from her seat, and practically marched out of the library, leaving the rest of them confused.
"What's up her skirt?" Buck predicted what Cherry would do for his words and covered the back of his head with his hands, which only earned him a slap on the forehead instead. Navi gestured for them to take a seat at the table, and they pulled up chairs to do so, with all four of them huddled around that small wooden rectangle, they looked like children waiting for a story, which made Navi laugh quietly.
She was about to begin when she remembered something, and threw a side glance at her partner, Rain gave her a nod of approval and readjusted the deep purple headphones that sat atop her hair before resuming her reading. Navi turned back to meet the gaze of the four around her and started to tell them the same things Rain had told her that very morning.
***
Wynter had been looking all over the grounds for at least half an hour, the torrent hadn't let up and she was soaked, but she was too concerned to care. She found herself back at the entrance of the school, facing the cliff edge when a sudden flash of lightning made her jump with a small squeak. However when it lit up her surroundings she could see the silhouette of a girl stood by the edge of the precipice, Wynter took a wild guess and concluded that her debatably insane partner would have to be the only one out here, so she ran over, taking care not to slip, and stood beside the shorter girl, who was staring absentmindedly into the sky.
The two stood in silence for several minutes before Wynter queried, "Teal, why are you out here in this weather?" She could barely make out a smile on the girl's features as she continued to gaze at the clouds.
"Rain told me once that whenever I see lightning, it's Fulgur letting me know that everything is going to be okay." Wynter didn't know whether there were tears streaming down her face, or just the rain.
"He was like a brother to you, wasn't he." Teal nodded slightly, never taking her eyes off the grey skies.
"He was more than that to Rain though, they didn't want to tell me, but I knew." Her statement was vague but Wynter knew exactly what she meant, and she pulled her friend into a hug as they stood there, allowing the rain to wash over them as it poured, both of them inadvertently smiling whenever a streak of light flashed through the darkness surrounding them.