Oktoberfest '09: Training, by Annwyd

[irishpirational.livejournal.com]

Title: Training
Author: annwyd (playing Lockon)
Word Count: 2,175
Rating: PG
Characters: Lockon Stratos, Allelujah Haptism, Setsuna F. Seiei.
Pairing: Sort of a little bit of Lockon/Setsuna if you squint? But not really.
Summary: Lockon can't rely on slingshots and the futile hope of a gun forever. Eventually, he needs to learn another way of fighting.
Notes: Somewhat rushed! Apologies if it's not quite up to par, but hopefully it's decent anyway.

Landel's Institute was no place for a sniper. It was an antiseptic maze of halls, with only a handful of great open spaces; Lockon noted this as soon as he got the chance to explore. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was that it seemed like everyone had been telling him the truth when they said there were no guns here. He had to face the facts: even if he did find a gun--much less a rifle, for heaven's sake--where would he get a steady supply of ammunition? It wasn't like this place had beam weaponry. If it did, there'd be no power source for it anyway.

Lockon persevered anyway. A slingshot was his first attempt, and it worked all right, but it wasn't the same. It was primitive and just a little bit unwieldy. He had to learn and unlearn a multitude of things to use it. And there was only so much damage you could do flinging spare batteries at monsters. He could feel the inevitable need creeping up on him, as much as he hated to admit it.

He would have to learn how to fight with his hands and close-range weapons held within them. There was no other option, no matter how much he tried to deny it. He did try to deny it, just as he'd been all too happy to deny it back home. Enemies seen through the sight of a rifle were so much easier to hurt--and somehow that became a habit, even when the enemies in question were monsters (not that all the enemies in the Institute were monsters, and that was the worst part; some took innocent forms, and Lockon didn't know if he'd ever be able to use any weapon on those). The thought of feeling a weapon in his hand connect with an enemy made him flinch a little inside. That wasn't who he was. He sniped the targets. He didn't hack and slash at them.

(There had been one time he hadn't minded using any weapon at his disposal to destroy his enemy. That hadn't been so long ago--but if Lockon let himself think about it for too long, it would be easy to get himself worked up into a state where the nurses were all too willing to sedate him. Then he'd be of no use to anyone, and worse yet, his teammates and the friends he'd made here would worry about him. He couldn't risk that.)

But lingering in the distance and taking enemies down without ever focusing on their face was just a habit Lockon had formed. It had been a useful habit, for a time, but in a fight, it couldn't win out against an instinct. And his need to protect was an instinct. Almost every night, he'd see Setsuna and Allelujah take on enemies that Lockon himself could do little more than distract. That wasn't right. That wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

In the end, as much as he hated to rely on others (it was supposed to be the other way around, after all), he knew he had to turn to someone for help. In most matters, Lockon was a fairly practical man, and he could see that Allelujah and Setsuna were the best choices for showing him how to fight like them. They were both good at fighting using whatever materials were available, and they both knew Lockon and how he worked.

But something beyond practicality stopped him from going to Setsuna for help at first. It was two somethings, actually, but he tried not to think about the second one. The first thing that stopped him was easy enough to explain without going too far into the dark places he still held onto in his heart. Setsuna was the one he took care of. If he asked Setsuna to teach him, it would be the other way around, and that just wouldn't be right.

The other reason, of course, was that he knew where Setsuna had learned to fight, and from whom.

Allelujah, though, was simply a teammate, not a kid he'd taken under his wing. Of course, in a sense he'd taken all of them under his wing, and it would be awkward to ask for help even from Allelujah, but it wasn't so bad, after all that. He'd already allowed some hints to slip that he wasn't comfortable with his lack of skill as things were. Allelujah would understand well enough.

Lockon knew he would have to wait until night to start any sort of training Allelujah could come up with for him, but during the day, he got the chance to ask during showers. It was as appropriate a place as any, he supposed. After all, here there was no hiding the toned muscles they both showed, nor the fact that Allelujah's bore more scars. Lockon's fitness came from simple exercise and training--and holding a rifle. Allelujah had always fought, although Lockon had never asked how or when.

He would ask that now, even if it was in a roundabout way. "Yo, Allelujah," he said, when he knew they weren't being watched. "I saw some of the stuff you turned into weapons. Think you could teach me how to use things like that?"

Allelujah hesitated, his reserve momentarily peeling back to show the fear underneath it. Lockon still didn't know where it came from. Someday he would learn, but he couldn't afford to push just yet. "I'm not sure you could..." He stopped, obviously not wanting to imply weakness there. "Lockon, I'll try. Please don't expect too much."

"It's all right," Lockon said. "I just want to be able to fend off the monsters a little better. Slingshots only get you so far, you know." And he smiled and laughed it off, but something about Allelujah's expression had arrested him.

He found out why that night, when he met Allelujah in his room.

Allelujah had set up a shirt tied to a pair of sweatpants as a target on the far side of the room. "Hey, hey, are you sure this is going to be enough space?" Lockon asked. "These rooms are pretty small."

"You wanted close-quarters combat," Allelujah said softly. "It would be like this, but with more blood." His gaze was distant, and for the first time around Allelujah, Lockon felt that urge to comfort and protect that had become second nature with Setsuna, with Feldt, with Tieria back home. There was a story there, tied up with Allelujah's strange reticence to speak of the HRL soldier Soma who was here, and when Lockon learned it, he would have to speak in stern but comforting tones once more. For now, though, there was the fight.

As soon as Allelujah demonstrated, a scalpel gripped in each hand, Lockon understood why he'd been reluctant to teach. He moved far too fast and with a great and unexpected savagery. Before Lockon could even properly follow his movements, he was on the other side of the room and the makeshift practice dummy was in tatters. Lockon understood, dimly, some of what had driven someone as gentle as Allelujah to become a Gundam Meister then. There was, always as he'd always suspected, a darkness underneath.

If Lockon were still a little more normal, he might have been jealous. But jealousy was just one of those emotions he'd sloughed off in the past decade or so. He didn't need it to accomplish his goals: to get revenge, to make a better world for his brother. All he needed for that was to hold onto the grief and rage--although somehow, along the way, he hadn't quite managed to get rid of that instinctive need to protect and better people. That was all right; it was a good distraction.

It did mean that if he could still be jealous, he would be jealous of Allelujah's abilities. Lockon knew he could protect people a lot better with that speed, that strength. But as it was, he simply smiled ruefully and said, "I don't think I'm going to be able to learn much from you, Allelujah. You're just too good at this."

"I thought that might be true," Allelujah said. He looked sad, and there was nothing Lockon could think of to comfort him.

In the wake of that, Lockon found himself wishing desperately that he knew more people at the Institute with the kind of abilities he sought to learn. But he'd been too busy looking for ways to protect his teammates and companions, and it had backfired on him. Now they were the only people he could ask for help. That left Lockon with no choice: he had to turn his world just a little bit upside down and ask Setsuna to teach him.

Lockon made the request in the Sun Room, as soon as the nurse's back was turned. "Setsuna, this might sound strange, but I need your help."

Setsuna only nodded. "I will help you however I can."

"Well, you might have noticed," Lockon said, "but all I've got here is--" He paused for a moment, as it looked like the nurse might turn back to them. But she didn't, and so he continued. "All I've got here to shoot with is a slingshot. It's not a whole lot of use."

"Nevertheless," Setsuna said, "I trust your ability with it."

Lockon smiled. "It's still not enough." He steeled himself, although he showed no sign of it on his face. "Setsuna, do you think you can teach me how to fight in melee combat?"

Setsuna only blinked. "Lockon Stratos," he said. "Are you certain?"

"Yeah," Lockon said. "It's time."

They did not meet in Setsuna's room, as Lockon and Allelujah had met in Allelujah's room. That night, they met in the empty space that in the day was one of the lobbies. There were chairs there, and small tables, but no people.

"This will work," Setsuna said. And they fought--and as they fought, Lockon learned.

Eventually, Lockon said to Setsuna, "You're holding back."

Setsuna hesitated, then nodded. "I'm only teaching you the skills and techniques I taught myself, and that I learned from my comrades. It would be wrong to pass on to you the skills given to me by Ali al-Saachez alone."

Lockon felt his hands curling into fists. "Yeah," he said. "Thanks, Setsuna."

"You're holding your hands wrong," Setsuna said. "Those aren't proper fists. Let me show you." And so he did. Though he hesitated, his gaze growing distant with dark memories, he even reached out to touch Lockon to show him the right way.

They rested, sometime in the middle of the night. Time was strange in these nights, so they had little idea how long it had been. Lockon wondered, but he soon put the thought aside. They'd been fighting for hours, he knew that much. His arms ached from the strange moves Setsuna had shown him. His mind ached from the strangeness of Setsuna teaching him anything. He was still stubbornly half-convinced it was meant to be the other way around.

But there was one thing Lockon had noticed that he did not mind. As they fought together, in this unfamiliar and physical way, Setsuna grew more willing to touch and be touched. He'd always sulked when Lockon touched him, and snarled when others tried it. Lockon, out of respect for him, had tried not to dwell on the why.

But now, as they rested, Setsuna laid his head on Lockon's shoulder--voluntarily, of his own will. Lockon did nothing to discourage him.

Eventually, Setsuna spoke again. "Lockon Stratos," he said, "no matter what I teach you, you could still disappear from this Institute at any time. I would never see you again. I thought I would never see you again once. If it happens again..."

"I'll stay," Lockon said. "For as long as you're here, Setsuna. Allelujah, too. I need to take care of both of you, right?" He smiled down at Setsuna.

"Feldt Grace disappeared," Setsuna said. "Even though she didn't wish to." He hesitated. "I held her hand to guide her through the halls, before she disappeared. It was better than I thought it might be." With only slight hesitation, he reached out. "I do not need to guide you through any halls, Lockon. But I would like to feel your hand in mine. So that I can remember that, no matter what."

"All right," Lockon said. He had no objection, and even though it felt strange to hold someone's hand without his gloves on, he took Setsuna's hand into his own.

"I may disappear," Setsuna said. "You might, as well. So we should touch Allelujah Haptism this way as well--and any others from our world who arrive here."

"Yeah," Lockon said. "But I'm still going to protect you guys."

Setsuna nodded. "We will return to our training soon."

But for the time being, he did not lift his head from Lockon's shoulder.