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Whitley felt a bead of sweat crawling down her neck, at the metallic figures standing before her.
"What," Blake answered, folding his arms, "when I said we weren't training against simulations, did you expect it would be real people?"
"Yes... Sir."
"These robots are just as real as any humans out there," was Blake's apt reply, as he walked to the training field, "they will kill you just like any regular human being, if you get caught."
Whitley looked at him, somewhat nervous.
"I'd have preferred humans," she mumbled. "And risked dying on the actual battlefield?" Blake asked, looking at the robots, "Don't worry, I'm here if anything goes wrong."
Whitley nodded quickly.
And in only a few moments, the lights turned on.
And turned red. Whitley looked sternly at the robot, watching and waiting for every moment as they lit up, one by one.
The sirens followed.
"S class robots. Activated."
The robots started walking, their heavy feet landing on the ground, one by one, with immense thuds.
"Training level: Critical."
Whitley looked back at Blake for assurance, but was shocked to see him flinching a little bit.
Don't tell her...
"Is your leg injury still acting up? Inspector!"
"Remain calm, Whitley."
The metal hand swerving towards her was immediately met by her rifle head, as she shot a bullet straight through the head of the first robot, it landing a few feet away from her, smoking at the ends.
Whitley panted, looking at her gun as she thought critically about what to do next.
Her life was about to end.
What was the Inspector thinking?
She couldn't do this!
More and more robots started walking toward her, each seemingly more menacing than the other, pointing their metallic arms with holes for bullets, straight at her.
Oh no.
They raised their hands, aiming to fire-
She shot them one by one, but quite a few missed, while the rest were barely thrown off by the hitting bullets, only coming closer.
"We're going to die here."
A bullet whizzed past the officer, making her eyes widen-
Going blank in shock.
"I told you to remain calm, Detective."
Blake yelled at her, but Whitley was unable to hear anything except the ringing in her ears, hands fiddling with the gun in panic.
Why wasn't her gun working? What was she doing wrong?
Why were the robots not going down? No one would be able to help her. She wouldn't be able to do anything, at all, after she realised Blake was injured and couldn't help her.
Was she worth anything at all?
As it turned out, her expression went blank even when she met a robot face to face, stared at the glass bead eyes as it raised its hand, wrapping around her neck.
"Detective!"
The robot's head flew off, a bit of oil falling on her face that the dying robot had squeezed out, before falling flat on the ground.
Even with his injured leg, Blake had managed to run and take down the targets before it hit her.
But Whitley had just fallen still in shock.
Was it even worth it to work here?
She was just going to die anyway.
But the dying robot wasn't done.
Raising it's metallic hand that still had the hole for bullets to go through, it pointed at Whitley, quivering as the wires around it glistened.
"Whitley, get out of the way!"
But the officer sat still.
And if not for Blake getting her away from the shooting field-
The bullet hit flesh and blood, but it was only her hand they had hurt.
Whitley had almost died.
If not for the Inspector.
Now she knew what could the differences in their skill mean for her.
It meant life and death.
The time limit of the training session finally went off, and the lights came down, becoming yellow again.
"You're overthinking this," Blake whispered, tearing apart a piece cloth from the handkerchief and wrapping it around her bleeding hand, "all you had to was shoot them, or remain calm."
"I couldn't," Whitley answered frankly, "I couldn't remain calm when I learned you might not be able to help me."
"I'll always be able to help you," Blake answered, tightening the piece of cloth that stopped the blood flow.
"What if you die?"
"Then you go and find someone else to help you," Blake answered aptly, making the final knot. Whitley nodded, looking carefully at her hand.
It felt quite numb, but the compression of the wound was done almost expertly, as if by a nurse.
Where had the Inspector learned this?
"Well, that's it, then."
Her Superior stood up, holding his arm out for the younger Detective to support, "We need to go back."
Whitley nodded, pulling herself up from the ground with the help of her supervisor. Both literally and figuratively, she supposed.
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One thing about the ending of FF16 which I absolutely cannot get over is the solution they have for slavery. (ROT13)
Vgf fb haoryvrinoyl anvir gung vgf fgenvtug hc bssrafvir. Gurer jnf ab ovt phygheny eribyhgvba. Vgf yvgrenyyl whfg rhtravpf. Pyvir sbhaq gur Zntvp Trar naq ryvzvangrq vg. Ab bar vf tbvat gb yrnea fuvg sebz gung. Vgf abg ubj bccerffvba jbexf. Nabgure Bgure jvyy whfg or fhowhtngrq vafgrnq.
(ff16 spoilers)
yeah, believe me, i could've written more about how bad and stupid the resolution of all that is. it's awful. clive's rebels are completely uninterested in broad social change and that remains true to the very end. it's a big part of why i think the slavery plot should have been removed entirely. but i think by the time we hit the final boss i was just so frazzled that i had little energy left to really make sense of the themes. it didn't feel like the story had earned that investment from me
on a related note: i've seen a couple people apply a "born this way" queer reading to the stuff with the bearers, since anyone from any family tree can just be randomly born into this oppressed minority group. i didn't bother commenting on this in the piece because it already felt long enough and because it really didn't feel like a reading that held any water to me. but if you DO try to apply this lens, then the ending where clive erases magic from existence basically becomes an ending where he erases the gay gene from existence. his solution to oppression is to remove the trait that allows the oppressed minority to be othered in the first place
it's just a mess all around. i'm not sure there's any reading of the stuff with the bearers that puts it in a particularly favorable light
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