Enhanced

VIII

Minutes earlier.

Facing the elegantly fashioned pistol toward the ground, she was in desperate need to do something to pass the time. Chances were that the others were still on the way back, laughing and giggling among one another and trying to forget what they were doing here. She had been here longer than any cadet in Never at this very second, maybe even longer than some of the previous ones. Her whole idealism was on combat. If there were a memory of her past that wasn't in one of these camps, it would have been some dream, or intoxicated thought of hers. The oldest memory that she had was the sound of a muffled shot of gunfire coming from outside a room she rendered distanced from. For her entire life she'd just thought that it was cadets or some of the sergeants practicing in the range. But as she grew with maturity, she lost all of the effort to try and make out what it was having no use of it.

If she did have parents, they were either gone or on some other planet. If she did have parents, there were no memories or pictures for her to even see who gave her life. All she knew was isolation, separation from other people because she had to grow up on her own. Everything that she learned, she did so herself. From self-education at the library, eavesdropping to the phrases people around her spoke to fighting like how the best cadets of her childhood did. People who have passed in time. But she wasn't going to let the emotion of solidarity consume her. Although at times her instincts would be to compromise commands given, her training enabled her to doubt anybody. Even those she trusted.

Yet even with these lessons and advice given to her, even with all the physical and psychological training she'd endured.. Katherine's thoughts for her parents would overcome her actions much more than anything else did. The closest she has ever had for family was Cody, making her reason for wanting him by her side as Strider even stronger than ever.

Racking the pistol's slide towards her, an unused bullet heaved out of the chamber and into the air. Snatching it mid-flight, the bullet was grasped in between her fingers and tightly gripped between them. She unloaded the magazine and lodged the metal back in, loading it back up. The pistol was secured into her holster, clipping the strap over as she fixed her shirt into her breeches. Lifting her eyes up, she saw Cassidy walking toward the barracks from the bridge, presumably arriving from the cafeteria. His expressions were as similar as they were with every time that she showed up there, separated from the rest.

"Miss Adair." He started, sighing as he caught a glimpse of her messy blonde hair.

"You don't have to always call me Miss Adair, sir." Katherine conceded, seeing as her family name was a name that she doesn't even know it's origins. "Katherine or Katherine is fine by me." She approved sarcastically.

"Why are you never with the rest of the Sixth, or any other squadron perhaps?" Cassidy asked, aware of her repetitive answer. "Try not to use the words, 'They're' 'Not' 'My' and 'Friends'." He placed under solid conditions.

Thereafter, Katherine struck a blind eye at him. "Fine." She exulted, "I don't want to be around them." She remarked, as Cassidy reached the door of the Sixth. "Try not to use the words, 'You're' 'Gonna' 'Have' 'To' 'Get' 'Used' 'To' and 'Them.'" 

"But unlike you, I'm right." Cassidy stated, "Just because they're all not Cody, Bryce or Carol doesn't mean they can't be." He added. "Even Miles."

"Are you assuming I hate Miles?" She asked, leaning her right shoulder against the thick wall with her arms crossed up.

"I'm just assuming that you find him as a rivaling adversary." He cleared his supposition, "Which you shouldn't, cadet." Cassidy lingered.

Her original words of opposition faded to dust when the sergeant spoke. Katherine didn't see Miles as some target, or some rival to her. Indeed she knew his capabilities on the field, she had seen it with her own eyes. She's even seen the lengths that he was willing to plunder to send a message to those he wanted to. A dangerous asset that couldn't even be contained by the person that put him here. With most of the knowledge of the cadets that have ever trained in this facility of Never, there was none like him and she knew that the day he walked through that door.